HOW TO BEHAVE, 



HOW TO BEHAVE: 



A MANUAL OF 



MANNERS AND MORALS. 



By T. L. NICHOLS, M.D., 

Author of " Forty Years of American Life," ' ' Human Physio- 
logy the Basis of Sanitary and Social Science," 
" Esoteric Anthropology," &c, &c. 



LONDON : 
LONGMANS, GREEN, 
1873. 



AND CO- 



Ik to H$ 



Errata. — The author very much regrets that 
many errors have escaped his too hasty revision of 
proofs. Most of them are obvious and will be 
readily corrected by the reader, as they will be in 
the plates for future editions. 



PREFACE. 



The number of Manners books, books of Etiquette, 
and Guides to Politeness and the Usages of Good 
Society, shows the want felt for instruction in good 
behaviour, and what have been called the minor 
morals. The supply has been in some proportion to 
the demand, and the demand shows a very laudable 
desire for improvement in the deportment, graces, 
and accomplishments which give a charm to society. 

I have added to the number of these useful books, 
because those I have examined, however correct 
and admirable they may be in laying down rules of 
conduct, or laws of etiquette, do not generally ap- 
pear to give the principles of social rights and duties, 
which are the basis of good behaviour. They seem 
to me rather external and superficial ; whereas good 
manners are based on morals, and good intention 
must be the spring of all right action. 

I have wished, also, to widen the scope of such 
instruction. Good behaviour is something more 
than the proper manners of the drawing-room, the 
dinner, or the ball. It belongs to all our relations 



PREFACE. 



to and intercourse with each other; therefore 1 
have treated of the relations of husbands and 
wives, parents and children, masters and servants, 
employers and employed, landlords and tenants, 
tradesmen and customers, lawyers and clients, phy- 
sicians and patients, clergymen and parishioners; 
of the varied relations of men and women to each 
other in our complex civilisation, the mutual duties 
involved in those relations, and the kind of be- 
haviour to each other which will best promote the 
welfare and happiness of the whole community, as 
well as the grace and excellence, the charm and 
enjoyment of what is called society. 

I have tried to make a good and useful book, and 
I shall be very glad if I have succeeded in making 
one which will prove also interesting and agreeable 
to its, I hope, numerous readers — one worthy to 
take its place in a list of "Works on Sanitary and 
Social Science." 

T. L. Nichols. 

Malvern, November ■, 1873. 



CON TEN TS. 



<2> 

PAGE. 

Chap. I. — Introduction, I 

II. — Care of the Person, 1 6 

III. — Clothes, - 25 

IV. — Deportment, 38 

V. — Manners, 50 

VI. — Accomplishments, - - - - - 59 

VII.— Society, - 68 

VIII.— Etiquette, 82 

IX. — Conversation,- ----- 97 

X.— The Family, 124 

XI. — Love, - - 136 

XII.— Marriage, 148 

XIII. — Work, 160 

XIV. — Service, 171 

XV.— Trade, - - 178 

XVI.— Speculation, 187 

XVII.— Professions, 192 

XVIII.— Aristocracy, 205 

XIX.— Religion, 212 

XX. — Miscellaneous Maxims, - - - - 217 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



CHAPTER L 

INTRODUCTION. 

Some time ago I wrote a little book which sold for 
sixpence, entitled " How to Live on Sixpence a-Day;" 
showing that simple, pure, and very economical food 
is better for every body than the most costly viands, 
and what are esteemed the greatest luxuries. I fol- 
lowed this with a larger one — " How to Cook," 
partly original, partly a compilation of recipes, to 
show how well people can live at a very cheap 
rate, and at how slight a cost they can have a varied, 
abundant, and delicious diet. Now I finish the series 
with a still larger and more widely important work, 
on manners and morals, or the conduct of life, which 
I shall call— " How to Behave." 

It is not merely a manners book — not simply a 
book of etiquette; but it treats of the elements of 
good manners, and the moral principles which are 
the basis of all right being and right doing — of good 
behaviour. It is an attempt to teach, in the plainest 
and most thorough manner, what every man and 
woman ought to know and do for themselves, and 
their own health, comfort, dignity, and happiness, and 



2 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



in order that they may promote the comfort and hap- 
piness of all aiound them. 

It is what we are, and thereby what we do, that 
gives us our value as members of society. In " Human 
Physiology, the Basis of Sanitary and Social Science, " 
I have said : — " All our faculties are social. Our 
intellect demands conversation, appreciation, admi- 
ration. Reading and writing, or correspondence, are 
partial substitutes, but what we enjoy much more is 
the animation of the living voice, the fire of the eye, 
the quick explanatory movements of the features, all 
the charm of refined and intelligent companionship. 
Our mirth is social; our wit is wasted if we speak 
it not ; our poetry must have hearers and readers : 
we make pictures and statues that they may be seen 
and enjoyed; our ambition, hope, pride, love of ap- 
probation, all refer to others — are social passions all. 
Our benevolence finds its objects in the world around 
us; oar conscience, or sense of justice and right, 
regards our relations to our fellow-men. In these 
relations is our true life, our real happiness, and 
love to God finds its practical manifestation in love 
to our fellow-men. Chiefly and best, we love Him 
in nature and in man. Reason and Religion are 
here in perfect harmony. 

"Whenever people are brought into near relations 
and close contact with each other, their manners be- 
come of more importance, if possible, than what we 
call their morals, since a man may be very honest 
and well disposed, yet very disagreeable. To asso- 



INTRODUCTION. 



3 



date with others, people must be neat and cleanly, 
must have no repulsive and disgusting habits, and 
be kind, civil, obliging, and courteous in their beha- 
viour to each other. Crabbed, snarling, complaining, 
rude, disputatious people are nuisances in any society. 
The essence of politeness is unselfishness, a sense of 
justice, a constant, habitual regard for the rights of 
others, and the discipline and habit of attention to 
the welfare, the convenience, and happiness of those 
around us, and all with whom we come into contact 
or proximity. Children from their earliest years should 
be trained to an unselfish consideration for the plea- 
sure of others ; and taught the delight of doing good. 
In all schools, civil, deferent, polite, conciliating, and 
obliging manners should be as carefully taught as the 
rudiments of learning. Manners really influence the 
character. Our thoughts and feelings are moulded 
by our actions." 

I have quoted myself to show the animus of the 
book 1 am writing, and that I esteem it a very 
important part of the work of social reformation 
I have endeavoured to promote in all my writings, 
and especially in the book from which I have made 
the above extracts. But I shall now quote more 
freely from the writings of others, to show that I am 
not alone in my view of the importance of good man- 
ners to man and to society. 

" Manners," says Burke, " are of more importance 
than laws. In a great measure the laws depend on 
them. The law teaches us but here and there, and 



4 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, 
corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarise or refine 
us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible opera- 
tion, like that of the air we breathe. They give their 
whole colour to our lives. According to their quality, 
they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally 
destroy them." 

My countryman, President Jefferson, writing from 
Paris in 1785, says: — "With respect to polite 
manners, without sacrificing too much the sincerity 
of language, I would wish my countrymen to adopt 
just so much of European politeness as to be 
ready to make all those little sacrifices of self which 
render European manners amiable, and relieve society 
from the disagreeable scenes to which rudeness often 
subjects it. Here, it seems that a man might pass a 
life without encountering a single rudeness. In the 
pleasures of the table they are far before us, because 
with good taste they unite temperance. I have never 
yet seen a man drunk in France, even among the 
lowest of the people." 

My own experience, almost a century later, agrees 
mainly with that of Mr. Jefferson. There is a greater 
consumption of brandy and absynthe in France than 
formerly, but still, one may travel across France, or 
live for weeks in Paris without ever seeing a French- 
man intoxicated. However cheap and abundant wines 
and liquors may be, most Frenchmen have too much 
amour propre, too much self-respect, too much regard 
for the good opinion of others, to get drunk. And it 



INTRODUCTION. 



S 



is delightful to live in a country where you are never 
intruded upon, never crowded, never insulted ; where 
the manners of the whole people, from the highest to 
the lowest, are civil, deferent, and obliging. 

But even in England, where good manners are less 
cultivated, there is a quick appreciation, and ready 
imitation of civility. Dr. Caldwell, an American Phy- 
sician, whose autobiography was published in 1855, 
was in London in 182 1, when some young American 
friends of his complained of the rudeness and neglect 
which they received from persons to whom they spoke 
in the streets. He told them the fault was probably 
in the bluntness of their own manners, and proposed 
that, for a small wager, they should try the experiment 
of walking about for some hours, while he asked 
questions of any persons they should designate. He 
says : "I put questions to more than twenty persons 
of every rank, from the high-bred gentleman to the 
servant in livery, and received, in every such instance, 
a courteous, and, in most instances, a satisfactory 
reply. What seemed most to surprise my friends was, 
that the individual accosted by me almost uniformly 
imitated my own manner. If I uncovered, as I usually 
did to a gentleman, or even to a man of ordinary ap- 
pearance and breeding, he did the same ; and when 
I touched my hat to a liveried coachman or footman, 
his hat was immediately under his arm. So much 
may be done, and such advantages gained, by simply 
avoiding coarseness and vulgarity, and being well- 
bred and agreeable/' 



6 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Mr. Emerson, to continue my American quotations, 
says : — " Manners are the happy ways of doing things • 
each one a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated 
and haidened into usage. They form at last a rich 
varnish, with which the routine of life is washed, 
and its details adorned. If they are superficial, so 
are the dewdrops which give such a depth to the 
morning meadows. Manners are very communicable ; 
men catch them from each other. Consuelo boasts 
of the lessons she had given the nobles in manners, 
on the stage and in real life. Talma taught Napoleon 
the art of behaviour. Genius invents fine manners, 
which the baron and the baroness copy very fast, and, 
by the advantage of a palace, better the instruction. 
They stereotype the lesson they have learned into a 
mode. The power of manner is incessant — an ele- 
ment as inconcealable as fire. The nobility cannot 
in any country be disguised, and no more in a repub- 
lic or a democracy than in a kingdom. No man can 
resist their influence. There are certain manners 
which are learned in good society of that force, that, 
if a person have them, he or she must be considered, 
and is everywhere welcome, though without beauty, 
or wealth, or genius. Give a boy address and accom- 
plishments, and you give him the mastery of palaces, 
and fortunes where he goes ; he has not the trouble 
of earning or owning them ; they solicit him to enter 
and possess/'* 

Lord Chesterfield cites the example of Lord Albe- 
marle, who, without birth, estate, learning, or abilities, 



INTRODUCTION. 



7 



became colonel in the guards, governor of Virginia, 
groom of the Stole, and ambassador to Paris — ap- 
pointments worth sixteen or seventeen thousand 
pounds a-year. 4 'Many people wondered/' says Lord 
Chesterfield, " but I do not. It was his air, his address, 
his manner, and his graces. He pleased, and by 
pleasing, became a favourite ; and by becoming a 
tavourite became all that he has been since." 

A finer example of the power of manner is found 
in the life of Count Rumford \ a poor boy in Massa- 
chusetts, who founded the Royal Institution of Great 
Britain, and for many years governed the King- 
dom of Bavaria. The fascination of his manner 
charmed all who knew him, and enabled him to 
carry out the most important philanthropic enter- 
prises, of some of which I have given a brief account 
in " Count Rumford : How he Banished Beggary 
from Bavaria." 

Within my memory, the standard of manners in 
England and America has visibly declined. Thus we 
hear of " gentlemen of the old school." I fear that 
America, after a century of progress, could scarcely 
show many gentlemen like George Washington, or 
Thomas Jefferson. In England, the manners of the 
upper classes are more simple, and their morals better 
in some particulars than they were fifty years ago ; 
but I judge that the manners, at least of the lower 
classes, have deteriorated ; for the aged are more 
respectful than the young, and there are many com- 
plaints of the increase of the rough element in the 



8 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



population of towns, with its vulgarity, insolence, and 
brutality. 

But England has undertaken the education of the 
whole people, and it is to be hoped that the young 
of all classes will be taught good manners and pure 
morals, as well as reading, writing, and arithmetic. 
To aid in this most needful and beneficent work, I 
write this little book, which I mean to make so clear, 
so plain, so adapted to the simple common sense of 
every reader, that its instructions shall be perfectly 
understood — a way " so plain that the wayfaring man, 
though a fool, need not err therein." It is not a sort 
of book that is likely to give one a reputation for 
literature or science — it is not likely to be reviewed 
in the quarterly, or even the weekly, magazines of 
criticism. But I hope it will do good. Bad man- 
ners stand in the way of all improvement in social 
organisation and conditions. They are a terror and 
a nuisance. They hinder co-operation, and they 
increase social divisions, and intensify class distinc- 
tions. A reform in manners must precede any bene- 
ficial reforms in politics and society. Once manners 
are truly reformed, all other reforms become less dif- 
ficult. 

" How to Behave v is a matter of universal inte- 
rest and utility. Every man, woman, and child, 
ought to know how to dress, act, converse, and re- 
spond to the varied demands of our social relations, 
in the best possible manner. Our whole life and 
society need re-forming, educating, refining, and 



INTRODUCTION. 



9 



polishing, to bring out their highest use and beauty. 
Life is made up of little things ; little acts, little 
courtesies, little enjoyments. He who does best in 
these, gives most pleasure to others, and secures 
most happiness to himself. 

Do not say these things are trifles and of no impor- 
tance. It is worth every man's study and effort to 
be a gentleman ; and every woman should try to be 
a lady, in all that constitutes genuine ladyhood. All 
those things which combine to form the manners 
and guide the deportment of the lady and the gentle_ 
man are elements of human happiness. Happiness 
is the one object of all our hopes and efforts; and 
we must find it in the most perfect being and doing 
of which we are capable. It is the satisfaction of our 
highest faculties and aspirations. It comes in living 
our true life, and doing the very best we can for our- 
selves, which we can only do by promoting the wel- 
fare and happiness of our fellow-creatures. It is the 
social law that we can be happy only by contributing 
to the happiness of others. The command to love 
our neighbour as ourselves is therefore a command 
to secure our own happiness ; and there is no law of 
life which it is not our highest good and greatest 
happiness to obey. This is the basis of all justice 
and all morality. God commands, nature requires, 
Oxily what is best for us and for all. There can be 
no right to do wrong. A true freedom is the right 
to do right. 

Life consists in being and doing. The being comes 



IO HOW TO BEHAVE. 

from the constitution of the being ; and the being is 
perfected, in its true development, by all genuine 
doing. The being of a man is the assemblage of all 
his capabilities. His bones and muscles, his strength 
and activity, his grace and beauty, his senses and 
organs, his propensities, sentiments, and intellectual 
faculties, all swell the wealth of his being. Each 
faculty has its own life, its own rights, and its own 
capabilities of happiness ; and all combine to make 
up the harmony of the complete being, which we call 
a man ; and it is the full, equal, and harmonious satis- 
faction of all these faculties, which constitutes the 
greatest happiness, and so fulfils the end of man- 
hood. Low enjoyments come from the exercise of 
low faculties, separated from, or uncontrolled by 
higher. High enjoyments consist in the exercise 
of the noblest faculties of honour, devotion, bene- 
volence, and justice. Nothing can fully satisfy the 
aspirations of the human soul, but the complete and 
harmonious gratification of all its desires and capa- 
bilities of enjoyment. Therefore, small things are 
of great consequence. A leaf is a little thing, but 
leaves make up the foliage of a tree, and each leaf 
has its own vital function. The little graces, accom- 
plishments, and suavities of life, are like the leaves 
of the tree; like the petals of its flowers, like the 
thousand of minute but charming things in nature 
which make up the sum of her attractions. 

The happiness of life in the aggregate — of the lives 
of the millions of men, women, and children around 



INTRODUCTION. 



II 



us — is far more influenced by manners and beha- 
viour; by the minor morals, or a regard to small 
rights and decorums; by kindness, politeness, and 
the elegancies of what some may think trifling accom- 
plishments, than by noble or heroic actions of bene- 
volence, or self-sacrifice, or magnanimity. Such acts 
fall within the opportunities of few, and cannot occur 
often ; but the others may enter into our daily and 
hourly lives, and diffuse their influence over our 
whole existence; and this joy of being and action is 
radiated and reflected everywhere; and its circling 
blessings, like the light of the stars, spread through 
the universe. 

Is it not a happiness to feel yourself charming; 
beautiful in form and feature, if so blessed ; beautiful 
in carriage and manner ; beautiful in the neatness 
and elegance of your dress ; beautiful in the kind- 
ness and politeness that shine forth in every expres- 
sion? You are happy in all this; you see others 
happy in admiring you. You feel that you add to 
the sum of human happiness. You are a living joy 
— a blessing in yourself, a blessing to all who see you. 
Men pause in their busiest walks to look at you, and 
feel better for the looking. Each visit you make dif- 
fuses a new joy. The day is full of delights. You 
give a new charm to many lives ; thus happiness is 
radiated upon other spirits, and so on, outward and 
onward, until your beauty has charmed the world, and 
your smile, like the beams of those far-off stars, whose 
light has not yet reached us, will shine upon posterity. 



12 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



And everything which contributes to the harmony 
of life in any being — every line of beauty, or motion 
of grace, or assemblage of pleasant colours, or con- 
cord of sweet sounds, is a real blessing ; and every 
look, or word, or action, which gives pleasure and 
promotes happiness, becomes a high moral duty. 
This is no mere question of fancy, of caprice, of 
arbitrary custom, or fashion ; but it is one of rights 
and duties, important enough for pulpits, and grave 
enough for legislators. 

There is no rule of life which is not based on 
science, and which may not be referred to some prin- 
ciple or law. Doubtless there may be observances 
of etiquette which seem purely arbitrary and capri- 
cious, but they are few and of little consequence. 
Even these, if carefully examined, may be found to 
have, or to have had, some good reason. But every 
genuine and valuable rule of behaviour may be re- 
ferred to some principle of natural law ; so that the 
observance of what may seem at first glance a matter 
of trifling etiquette, may be a moral duty ; and a 
breach of decorum a crime. 

A rudeness to any person is an offence, and is 
even recognised as such in law. The neglect of 
politeness, in certain cases, is a positive rudeness. 
The man who does not do what is becoming to a 
gentleman, commits a sin of omission, which may be 
a very grave one. He who does not prevent an 
injury, when it is in his power, might almost as well 
inflict it. The man who neglects to save life is not 



INTRODUCTION. 



*3 



much better than a downright murderer. So, a 
neglect of politeness may be the severest insult that 
can be offered. 

Every breach of good manners is some violation 
of right. Every neglect of politeness is a failure in 
duty. Men and women are members of society, 
and have social wants and social duties growing out 
of their social relations. It is not enough that we 
let people alone, and injure no one. It is not enough 
to " cease to do evil ; we must also " learn to do well." 

Every faculty and every organ has its own special 
rights— the right not to be offended ; the right to 
gratification and pleasure. Taste has the right not 
to be compelled to eat unsavoury food; and the 
right to seek for gustatory enjoyments. The parent 
who compels a child to eat food which is loathsome 
to its unperverted taste, violates the rights of this 
sense. The host who provides good food, and the 
cook who prepares it, exercise the politeness of taste, 
and satisfy the rights of appetite. 

The smell has its rights, but they are everywhere 
violated. Whoever fills the air I must breathe with 
unpleasant odours, is guilty of a wrong. If the smell 
is merely unpleasant, it is an impoliteness ; if un- 
wholesome, it is a crime ; and, as a general law, 
unpleasant odours are also unwholesome. Poor nose ! 
its rights are little recognised. Our streets are filled 
with nauseous odours ; and the personal uncleanli- 
ness of many persons is an outrage to the sense of 
smell. 



14 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Sight has a right to beauty, symmetry, and elegance 
of form, harmony of colours, grace of movement, and 
every pleasing quality ; to fine scenery, noble archi- 
tecture, elegant furniture and decorations, to exqui- 
site works of art, and to all possible beauty of person, 
costume, and adornment. Its rights are denied by 
deprivation of these enjoyments, and it is outraged 
by every obtrusion of ugliness. 

Hearing has the right to sweet and melodious 
sounds, and the grand harmonies of musical art : it 
is offended by noise, confusion, and all harsh, dis- 
sonant and repulsive sounds. 

There is scarcely a greater fault of manners, or 
offence against the rights of others, than the unne- 
cessary obtrusion of painful, repulsive, or disgusting 
ideas or things. He who conceals a pain, an afflic- 
tion, or a misfortune, from politeness, which is but 
another name for kindness or benevolence, is a true 
hero. 

With some people the chief staple of conversation 
consists of the aches, illnesses, and misfortunes of 
themselves and their neighbours ; but such things 
ought never to be brought into a circle of refined 
society. We should no more pain or disgust others 
than inflict bodily injuries. 

Thus we see that a book of behaviour may be a 
work of science and philosophy; that etiquette is 
based on principles and laws; that behaviour may 
have its foundation in mathematics; that grace of 
deportment is a noble art; that from the slightest act 



INTRODUCTION. 



of complaisance to the highest moral duty the same 
great principles should govern us. 

it has been said that each individual has the right 
to secure his own happiness in his own way, so long 
as he does not interfere with the equal right of every 
other. This is true, but not the whole truth. Each 
individual does secure the greatest possible happiness 
to himself when he promotes, in the highest degree, 
the happiness of all other beings. The good of one 
is the good of all; and were there no question of the 
feelings or opinions of others, every man would like 
to have his own respect and good opinion, which he 
could not do if he allowed himself to behave impro- 
perly in his own society. It is for this reason that, 
when a man behaves very badly, he is thought to be 
beside himself, or rather aside from himself, and 
quite oblivious of his own personality, which is a 
phenomenon of intoxication, as of other insanity ; in 
which persons do the most unseemly and outrageous 
things, because they are unconscious of any recog- 
nition. 

I believe that in the heart of a desert, or on an 
uninhabited island, a true gentleman would preserve 
all his dignity, and all his propriety and purity of 
conduct. I am sure that a true lady, in the privacy 
of her own apartment, is just as much a lady, as 
sweet, and delicate, and refined, and every way 
beautiful, as in the parlour, where I met her for a 
morning chat ; or in the drawing-room, where she is 
the cynosure of the evening party. Because every- 



i6 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



where the free being acts out his true nature. His 
life is instinctive and genuine, and his training has 
perfected his capabilities ; so that habit is a second 
nature, which he does not violate. 



CHAPTER II. 

CARE OF THE PERSON. 

There can be no health, no comfort, no happiness 
in one's self; nor is it possible to be agreeable, or even 
tolerable to others, without attending to the common 
decencies of life in the care of our own bodies. 

No one wishes to inspire others with disgust. No 
one ought to be willing, from laziness, inattention, or 
moroseness, to produce an unpleasant impression on 
any of the senses of those about him. No man can 
afford to cut himself off from human sympathy, which 
is an element of life. 

The care of the person is the beginning of good 
manners. We enter here upon delicate ground; 
but the reader will see its necessity, and excuse our 
plainness of speech. The first moral and physical 
duty of every human being is to be clean. Cleanli- 
ness is akin to godliness. Filth is a violation of the 
rights of several of the senses. We see it; we feel 
it; sometimes we may be cheated into tasting it; 
and we smell it terribly. In all ways, and under all 



CARE OF THE PERSON. 



I? 



conditions, it is vile and bad, ill-mannered and im- 
moral. 

First of all, then, and above all, and as the prime 
condition of all excellence of character and beauty 
of life, be thoroughly and perfectly clean! The 
human organism is so constituted that no person 
can be absolutely clean without washing the whole 
surface of the body every day. Millions of pores 
are constantly exuding waste matter from the body. 
This matter, if allowed to remain, is filth; in any 
considerable quantity it is poison. Retained in the 
system, it is matter of disease. 

It is not enough to change the under garments 
often. Much is carried away, but much also adheres. 
In certain parts of the body, as under the arms and 
on the feet, it collects rapidly, and in a few hours has 
an offensive odour. 

Cleanly persons have acute senses. I know ladies 
who can tell whether a person bathes daily the mo- 
ment he comes into the room. Many a well-dressed 
man scents a parlour, as soon as he enters it, with 
the odour of his unwashed feet and gathered perspi- 
ration. We smell it everywhere — at theatres and 
churches, in steamboat cabins and omnibuses; every- 
where we meet this mortifying and disgusting fact of 
personal uncleanliness. People whose senses are 
blunted by custom are unconscious of their personal 
conditions, but they are always liable to meet those 
to whom their lack of the first decency of life is a 
violent breach of good manners. 

B 



1 8 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



It is not difficult to take a daily bath — that is, to 
wash one's self all over thoroughly every morning. 
If face and hands feel better for it, why not the whole 
body? Cold water is better than warm; more in- 
vigorating, with less liability to chill. Washing the 
whole skin daily in cold water keeps that great puri- 
fying organ, with its myriads of glands and pores, in 
a pure, active, and healthy condition, and promotes 
the healthy action of every organ of the body. Dirt, 
on the other band — the condensed perspiration, the 
solidified waste matter of the system — stops up the 
pores, and is a mechanical cause of disease, as well 
as an active poison. It is well to take a thorough 
washing every few days with hot water and soap, or 
ammonia, and this may be most conveniently done 
at night before going to bed ; but the daily bath, for 
cleanliness and health, should be taken on rising in 
the morning. 

If one has but a pint of water, he can wash the 
whole body with his hands, if he can do no better. 
If one has but two towels, one can be dipped in the 
water and used to wash with, and the other to wipe. 
If there is a shallow tub to stand in, the towel can 
be used with as much water as it will hold. Some 
prefer a sponge, but one may do very well with a 
towel. Begin with face, head, and arms. At least * 
the scalp and roots of the hair should have the bene- 
fit of the daily bath. Then dip the towel afresh and 
wash down the front of the body and legs; double 
lengthwise, dip, and, beginning at the neck, wash 



CARE OF THE PERSON. 



*9 



down the back ; finish by carefully washing the feet. 
Now a thorough wiping and brisk rubbing of the 
whole body ; and- finish, if you can, with flesh brush, 
crash, or Turkish towel. 

Washing the head promotes the growth and beauty 
of the hair, and prevents headache. Washing the 
teeth and gums with a hard brush and cold water 
keeps the teeth white and clear of tartar, the gums 
red and firm, and the breath sweet. Washing the 
whole skin keeps it clean and sweeter, often, than all 
perfumes; prevents colds, coughs, chilliness, rheuma- 
tism, and gives the complexion a pure, clear, fresh 
tint of health, better than all cosmetics. Cleanliness 
of the whole person is the first element of refinement. 

Every sleeping or dressing-room should be fur- 
nished with plenty of water, pure and good soap, 
plenty of soft and hard towels, a broad, shallow tub 
to stand in, combs, nail brushes, tooth brushes, hair 
brushes, flesh brushes. Of these strictly personal 
things every one should have his own — not to be 
used by another except under pressure of the direst 
necessity. 

To breathe pure air by night and by day is one 
of the most important of the conditions of health. 
Every room should have thorough ventilation. A 
- window, open at the top ever so little, allows the foul, 
breathed air to pass off, and fresh air to enter. 
Where several persons are in a room, railway com- 
partment, or carriage, each one deprives the air of 
oxygen, and loads it with carbonic acid, and the 



20 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



waste matter of his body, which no one should be 
required to breathe. Fresh air is an element of 
health, manners, and morals. To live without it is 
a slow suicide ; to deprive others of it approximates 
to homicide. 

These may seem small matters, but small matters 
make up the sum of life. And some of these are 
matters of great importance. When an unwashed 
person comes into a room, he fills it in a few minutes 
with the effluvia of his body. Five or six such 
persons make the atmosphere disgusting to the 
senses, and poisonous to the constitution. Our 
churches, concert-rooms, theatres, all places filled 
by people of ordinary habits of life become pestifer- 
ous, unless great attention is paid to their ventilation. 
Soldiers in camps, and prisoners in jails, have often 
bred pestilence, and there is no doubt that many 
lives are shortened by the bad air of our fashionable 
assemblies. 

Cleanliness of clothing should correspond with 
cleanliness of the person. It is, in fact, part of the 
same thing. The entire under-clothing should be 
changed often. Bed clothing should be thoroughly 
aired every day, and often changed. The bed 
clothes in the morning are filled with the emanations 
of the body during several hours. In no case must 
it be re-absorbed. We must sleep in no garment 
that we have worn during the day, and wear by 
day none that we have worn at night. When we 
take off our clothes every article to be worn again 



CARE OF THE PERSON. 



21 



should be well shaken, and hung where it can be 
aired during the night. So the bed should be spread 
open in the morning, and sheets and blankets well 
shaken and aired. These are conditions alike of 
decency and health. Persons, garments, breath, 
should be kept pure and sweet, so as to offend no 
sense of our own or another's. The nails should be 
nicely cut, and kept perfectly clean — this is a mark 
of the most careful breeding; so of the bright clean- 
liness of hair and teeth. 

For health, beauty, sweetness, and use, the teeth 
should be kept clean from the earliest period, by 
daily and careful washing. No speck of tartar should 
be allowed to gather on them, no food to lodge be- 
tween them; but they should be ever bright and 
clean. Foul and rotten teeth are disgusting to the 
sight, and still more to the smell. Keep them 
thoroughly clean ; wash teeth and mouth with anti- 
septics if the teeth show the least taint, and at the 
first sign of decay, consult a good dentist. 

The natural functions of the body should be per- 
formed with regularity. The diet should be of a 
character to produce a full daily evacuation of the 
bowels. This is a necessity of decency and health. 
It is seldom needful to take medicine. We have but 
to eat healthy food to keep entirely free from consti- 
pation, and all its attendant and often distressing 
maladies. Good brown bread, made of unbolted 
wheat meal, porridge of coarsely ground wheat or 
oatmeal (the former is best); fruit, as apples, pears 



22 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



berries, stewed prunes, figs; spinach, and other 
greens and vegetables, keep the bowels in a healthy 
condition. Injections of cold water are better than 
any aperients or cathartics. Health is a condition 
of beauty, activity, and enjoyment. Certain states 
of illness unfit a person for society. We should 
never intrude upon others any object of disgust, 
least of all ourselves. A man with a swollen face, 
or sore eyes, an eruption, a severe cold, a catarrh, or 
in a condition which in any way offends the sight, 
smell, or hearing, must refrain from general society. 
It is our duty to give pleasure — we have no right to 
inflict pain. 

All right care of the person must have its basis in 
health, which is the condition of beauty, grace, 
happiness in ourselves, and the power of confer- 
ring happiness on others. Health gives bright- 
ness to the eye, the rosy flush to the complexion, 
the silken gloss of the hair, the charm of ani- 
mated expression to the features, and all the grace 
and charm of an abounding vitality — a fulness of 
life. 

To be healthy — to possess this first condition of 
the enjoyment of life, the spring of good behaviour, 
we must observe the conditions of health, and avoid 
the causes of disease. We must be clean and pure 
in our persons, our habits and our morals. We 
must bathe in pure water, breathe pure air, and live 
on pure food, and shun every cause of nervous 
abus-e and exhaustion. We must expand and 



CARE OF THE PERSON. 



23 



develop body and mind by exercise, avoid sensu- 
ality and sloth, be temperate and chaste, and beware 
of every kind of vicious indulgence. 

In food, we should seek that which will give us 
the best nourishment, in the purest and most agree- 
able forms. The type of the most natural, and 
therefore best and most healthful food is fruit and 
the seeds of plants. Children, and all persons of 
simple, natural tastes, love apples, peaches, grapes, 
strawberries, etc. Then comes bread in all its 
varieties, then milk and its products, and eggs. In 
the choice of food we should follow our tastes and 
instincts. What food would a lover like best to see 
his mistress eat? Not bacon or sausages. Not 
anything that would taint her breath, or destroy the 
delicacy of her complexion. The more simple the 
food, and the less it is composed of the bodies of 
dead animals, the better for health and purity of life. 

All stimulants — all intoxicants — all narcotics are 
dangerous. They always injure, they often destroy. 
Tea, coffee, tobacco, opium, narcotics which " cheer 
but not inebriate," are really intoxicants, though 
they act differently from beer, wine, and spirits. 
They excite the nerves, and therefore weaken them. 
I earnestly advise the young to let them all alone ; 
and I advise parents to save their children from 
acquiring the habit of using any kind of stimulants, 
however innocent many may esteem them. They 
are all useless for nourishment ; all dangerous to the 
nervous systems of those who use them. 



24 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Tobacco, the worst of narcotics, because the most 
widely used, is fortunately almost entirely restricted 
to one sex. The good taste of women has so far 
protected them from its pollution. And there are 
few men who, even if they smoke themselves, would 
be willing to see their mothers, wives, sisters, sweet- 
hearts, or daughters filling their drawing-rooms or 
the streets with tobacco smoke. But if tobacco be 
right and good for men, why should women be 
debarred from its use and enjoyment. If the boy 01 
twelve may smoke, why not his sister ? If the lord, 
why not the lady ; if the earl, why not the countess ; 
if the prince, why not the princess? But the use of 
tobacco produces in many persons disgust and 
nausea, simply by its presence. It taints the breath, 
the hair, and beard, and the clothing. Can it be 
good manners to use anywhere what is prohibited in 
all polite assemblies, and wherever women congre- 
gate ? Can it be nice to do what banishes people to 
rooms specially provided for the purpose, and makes 
them objects of disgust to many men, and a great 
majority of women ? 

There can be no doubt that the use of tobacco is 
a cause of many deadly, nervous diseases. No one 
can point to a single benefit the world has derived 
from it during the three centuries since it came into 
use. It could be entirely abandoned, not only with- 
out loss, but with great advantage to human health 
and well-being. 

In our day, gentlemen are never seen intoxicated 



CLOTHES. 



25 



— ladies, who deserved the name, never were. 
Women left the table before men began to drink. 
Drunkenness is out of fashion for either sex, and it 
may be hoped that this fashion of moderation, if not 
of abstinence, will spread like fashions in dress, from 
the higher to the lower classes. Certainly, no one 
who wishes to preserve health or character will ever 
risk the excessive use of intoxicating liquors, and the 
only safe course for great numbers is to abstain from 
them altogether. 



CHAPTER III. 

CLOTHES. 

Man alone, of all creatures, needs to be concerned 
about clothes. Nature has provided in the most 
fitting and beautiful manner for all beasts, birds, 
fishes, and insects. Look at the glossy hair, mane, 
and tail of the horse, the markings of the tiger and 
leopard, the soft fur of cat or beaver, the brilliant, 
graceful, and wonderfully painted plumage of the 
birds, the fishes' shining scales, and all the marvels 
of the insect world. For warmth and protection from 
rain and heat, and for ornament, we imitate and 
appropriate the natural costumes of the animal and 
vegetable world. We wear skins, fur, wool, feathers, 
and the fibrous coats and seed coverings of plants. 



26 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



We ornament ourselves with metals, minerals, 
crystals, coral, pearls, feathers, leaves, and flowers. 
The three kingdoms of nature furnishes us with all 
the colours of the rainbow. Fishes give purple, 
insects cochineal, and even the coal that warms us, 
yields up to chemistry the most gorgeous tints for 
our adornment. 

In an Eden clime and shameless innocence, with 
perfect health and freedom from all deformities, 
clothing might not be needed. There are tropical 
regions where people go almost, and children entirely 
naked, and many persons believe that this exposure 
of the whole surface of the body to the action of 
air and light has great advantages. Certainly, the 
portions of our skin habitually exposed are the most 
healthy. Even in this climate of England, our 
ancestors wore very little clothing. Highland regi- 
ments are contented with their kilts, and the North 
American Indian, where the winters are far more 
severe, went nearly naked in the coldest weather — 
being, as he said, "all face."' 

To us, however, clothing has become necessary 
for warmth and decency, for the concealment of 
bodily defects, for custom, fashion, grace, and 
elegance. We should seek, therefore, to clothe 
ourselves in the best manner for all our needs — to 
dress for comfort, convenience, use, and beauty ; for 
our own good and pleasure, and for the comfort and 
delight of all around us. 

The entire costume should be neat, clean, appro- 



CLOTHES. 



27 



priate, modest, unobtrusive; not expressive of os- 
tentation, vanity, or self-conceit; suitable to our 
condition and fortune ; becoming, elegant, and such 
as to produce a good impression upon all who see 
us. Dress is a language speaking to the eye — and we 
should not use bad language. Dress is an indication 
of character, and a means of influence, and of educa- 
tion. Shabbiness of dress is a demoralisation. 
Behaviour is influenced by costume. People who 
are careless in their dress are likely to be careless in 
their habits and manners; when they put on nice 
clothes they assume a corresponding behaviour. 

There may be times and circumstances when 
people do well to put on sackcloth and ashes, and 
dress for humiliation and mortification. In the sad- 
ness of a great calamity we put off gay attire ; and 
though we may not obtrude our grief by mourning 
weeds, we should not wear bright colours. But in 
our ordinary life and its enjoyments, we ought to be 
in harmony with the beauty of the world around us 
— with earth and skies, trees and flowers ; and to be 
as well clothed, at least, as birds and beasts. 

There is some style of dress more suited than any 
others to every person and every condition. The 
labourer, the domestic servant, the artizan, the 
tradesman, the professional man, each looks best in 
his own befitting costume. It is pleasant, travelling 
over the continent, to see the neat becoming dress 
of every rank and condition ; no one ever aping 
the other; each one preserving his own character 



28 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



and dignity, respecting himself and respected by 
others. 

For cleanliness and protection from cold, every 
one should wear under-shirts and drawers, which 
may be of cotton, linen, wool, or silk. Cotton 
is warmer than linen, less irritating to sensitive 
nerves than any but the finest wool; while the 
latter and spun silk are better non-conductors of 
heat. It is a matter of individual taste and comfort. 
Some ladies wear complete, close-fitting hosiery 
under-garments, covering the whole body, and over 
them the chemise and drawers, the latter of cotton 
or linen in summer, and flannel in winter. And 
they do well who also wear good woollen or worsted 
stockings nine months in twelve in England, even if 
they have fine thread or silk ones over them. 

Multitudes of people in England, and not alone 
those of the poorer class, and especially women, 
suffer from throat and lung diseases and rheumatism 
for lack of good warm underclothing. In such cases 
a thick undershirt, and flannel drawers and petticoats 
are far better than all the drugs of the dispensaries ; 
and doctors would do well to examine all poor 
patients, and some not poor, but who have the habit 
of dressing poorly in this respect, and make their 
prescription accordingly. Cleanliness, coal, and flan- 
nel, are for great numbers the most needed medicines. 

A good warm nightgown is a necessity. No one 
should ever sleep at night in any garment worn by 
day. And all clothing, night and day, should be 



CLOTHES. 



2 9 



well shaken and aired, and kept perfectly clean and 
sweet. There is a colliery in Belgium where the 
clothes of the miners are washed daily. Every 
miner on coming from the pit takes a bath, and his 
garments go to the laundry, and are ready for him 
to put on fresh and clean next morning. 

Every man should have plenty of good, well-fitting, 
nicely made shirts. In these days of cheap fabrics 
and sewing machines there is no excuse for not having 
good ones and a good supply. I confess to a great 
repugnance to any sort of shams in this direction ; 
detached collars seem a necessity of fashion, but not 
false wristbands and false fronts. The shirt should 
be changed often enough not to need them. It is 
rather extravagant to wear two shirts a-day, but a 
gentleman who goes much into society can scarcely 
wear less than six a-week. No exact rule can be 
given but this — no one should ever wear any garment, 
seen or unseen, which would show that it had been 
worn to sight or smell. Any article that offends 
either sense belongs to the washerwoman. 

The London costermongers, male and female, are 
well shod. It is a redeeming trait in their characters. 
Landing on the French coast, the first thing you 
observe is the strong, clean, proper costumes of the 
peasant women, with their white caps, coarse woollen 
gowns, good stockings, and strong leather or wooden 
shoes. One can hardly be too careful about the 
make and fit of boots and shoes, in avoiding corns, 
bunions, and slovenliness. Cheapness is no economy. 



3° 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Live on sixpence a-day, — but wear good leather; and 
never wear a too tight, or an ill-fitting, or an ugly 
formed shoe. To a certain degree one may — per- 
haps I should say must — conform to the fashion, 
however absurd it may be ; but I doubt the necessity 
of wearing a boot with a heel two inches high placed 
under the hollow of the foot. Fashion may adorn, 
but should never outrage, nature. 

Men wear hats in considerable variety, and one 
may choose, or let a friend choose for him the style 
that suits him best, high or low crown, broad brim, 
or narrow ; but the hat, whatever its form, should be 
light, and the fit perfect. Be sure that it is large 
enough ; because it is easy to pad a little under the 
lining. Be sure that it is light and easy, for I have 
no doubt that many brains are injured by oppressive 
head gear. It is well to have a soft light hat or cap 
for common use, and for travelling, and keep the well- 
brushed stove-pipe affair for more solemn occasions. 

The cut of the hair, and the style of the beard 
may generally be left to the hairdresser. If you 
cannot trust to his taste in the matter, use your own, 
or consult some one who has an interest in your 
good appearance. But it is my solemn opinion that 
razors may be entirely banished from the earth with 
great advantage to health and manliness. I see no 
good reason why any man should shave. It is a 
fashion, like that of judges and barristers, and the 
speaker and clerks of the House of Commons wear- 
ing absurd white wigs of curled horse hair. The 



CLOTHES. 



31 



Bishops left them off but lately ; and why the others 
stick to such tom-foolery passes comprehension. A 
becoming and distinctive costume— yes : but these 
wigs are not becoming. Never let hair or beard 
show that you have used oil or pomatum. If hair or 
skin require any artificial aid, the art must never be 
apparent. I do not say that no lady may use white 
powder for a sallow skin, or a tinge of rouge upon a 
pallid cheek or lip ; or darken the hair, or brows, or 
lashes • but I do say that no such device should ever 
betray itself by careless or extravagant use. Have I 
not seen women who looked as if they had laid their 
faces into the bread trough, and so rouged that one 
could see it across the street ? 

The fashions of dressing women's hair have for 
some years been artificial, extravagant, and out- 
rageous — unnatural to such a degree that all women 
who care for real grace and beauty should revolt 
against them. Now that " the rage " has passed 
away, we can see how hideous were the chignons 
of a few years ago, stuck like a pumpkin on the back 
of the head — worn even by ladies on horseback in 
Rotten Row — the hideous monstrosities bobbing up 
and down behind the stove-pipe hats. I do not see 
that the modifications of wildly-stuffed manes that suc- 
ceeded them were more becoming, or that the towers 
carried the hats or bonnets ten inches into the air 
were better. A fine head of natural hair is a glory 
to a woman — but is a mass of false hair, or jute, 
or padding any particular glory ? 



32 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



" False hair " is an unpleasant phrase ; for we 
want nothing false in, or out, or about us. But I see 
no more harm in wearing the hair of other people, 
than the fur or feathers of other animals. It is 
the monstrosities of form and size that I object to. 
A woman's long, glossy hair, is one of the loveliest 
of nature's • adornments, and may be worn in many 
fashions of exquisite beauty. 

Dyeing the hair is doubtful. Some dyes have an 
unpleasant smell — some are poisonous. It seems to 
me better that a woman should wear her grey or 
white hair than to colour it; and to change the 
natural colour of young hair to some fashionable 
tint is a great folly. All natural colours suit the 
complexion — and grey or white hair looks better 
upon a worn and faded face than artificial black or 
brown. 

Fashion is inexplicable. No one can tell whence 
it comes, or by what laws it is governed; but it rules 
a large part of the world. In Asia and Northern 
Africa dress has little change for centuries. On 
many parts of the continent, the common people 
have kept to their costumes for a long period ; but 
the higher classes of Europe and America have for 
some centuries varied their forms and styles of dress 
as if some potentate more powerful than any monarch 
had given the law, and all hastened to obey it. Look 
through the fashion plates of the last hundred years, 
and you will see how the ugliest things ever worn by 
man or woman have been the fashion in different 



CLOTHES. 



periods. There is certainly some style of dress 
more fitting, and more beautiful for every style of 
person, than any other — but fashion compels all to 
dress alike, and all to dress in the most absurd and 
unbecoming manner. Bonnets are at one time like 
coal scuttles ; at another a mere wisp of ribbon and 
flowers. Waists are close under the arms or down 
to the hips. Skirts cling to the legs, or expand to 
huge balloons. They come but half way down the 
calf, or drag a yard upon the ground. What is 
esteemed beautiful in one year becomes frightful 
the next. We all see the absurdity of fashion ; yet 
we are all obliged to more or less conform to it — and 
I think the conformity should be rather less. A 
good rule is to always keep inside the fashion, but 
to dress so as not to be very noticeably different 
from others, with the difference a sensible and taste- 
ful one. When fashion requires a woman to uncover 
her shoulders and bosom, a modest woman will keep 
on the side of modesty, and a tasteful woman on 
the side of taste. 

And health ought always to be considered. A 
woman bares her arms and shoulders with the 
chance of bronchitis ; she changes woollen stockings 
for thread and silk at the risk of rheumatism ; she 
laces herself into the fashionable wasp or hour-glass 
waist in deadly peril from compressed lungs, heart, 
liver, and stomach — spinal disease — impeded respira- 
tion — impeded circulation. It is true that a certain 
vigour of constitution may triumph over all the 

c 



34 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



usual causes of disease, but it is also true that they 
are death to thousands. 

The clothing of both sexes should be good, sub- 
stantial, becoming in style and colour, adapted to 
size and figure, made of genuine, lasting materials, 
and so made and worn as to best answer every 
purpose of dress. To get good articles, and have 
them well and nicely made is the best economy. 
Good firm cloth, and textures of every kind, are 
cheaper in the end than shoddy and shams. A good 
article will wear, turn, change, make over, and do 
for others when you can make it do no longer. 
Double the price and you get treble or quadruple 
the wear \ and have the benefit of a rich, elegant, 
and beautiful article. A really good coat, hat, pair 
of boots, or dress, looks better after a year's service 
than a sham, cheap, new one. The same rule 
applies to every article of use or ornament. Avoid 
imitations, and all false trimmings and jewellery. 
Rather go without anything that can be spared than 
wear what you are or ought to be ashamed of. This 
is not only good taste, but good economy. A pair 
of gloves at four shillings will outwear three pairs at 
two shillings, and look better to the last moment. 

Find a good hatter, boot maker, tailor; have 
everything made to measure, and everything as good 
as you can buy — sure that the best at a reasonable 
price will be the cheapest — for it costs as much to 
make most articles of poor materials as of good. 
This rule applies to most articles of ladies' dress as 



CLOTHES. 



35 



well as gentlemen's ; but if a dress is to be worn but 
once or twice, the cheaper the stuff, and the less the 
labour expended upon it, the better. 

Englishmen wear grey, brown, purple plaids and 
stripes in the morning ; in the afternoon, black, or 
dark blue frock coats, and for dinner and evening 
dress the black swallow tail coat, black cloth waist- 
coat with open bosom, and black cloth trousers. It 
is useless to quarrel with these fashions. We have 
only to conform to them. Only, when Englishmen 
travel on the Continent, they would do well to con- 
form a little to continental tastes and habits ; and 
not visit churches, or go to theatres in rough grey 
" tourists' suits " and " wide awakes. " 

Rather dark gloves are worn in the morning; 
lavender or buff in the afternoon ; and with full 
evening dress, pure white ; though some of the 
lighter tints may be admissible. Ladies try to match 
the colours of dress, boots, and gloves. At least, 
they choose harmonious tints ; colours that suit their 
hair and complexions, and that also suit each other. 
Englishwomen are said to be faulty in these matters, 
whilst Frenchwomen are almost invariably perfect ; 
and it is quite true that one can generally distinguish 
Englishwomen in Paris by the style of dress, the 
colours they wear, and their manner of wearing 
them. The English style is wanting in elegance, 
grace, propriety, and harmony. The colours are 
stronger, and fighting with each other, and the effect 
is what people call " glaring " and " dowdy." No 



36 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



doubt there are English ladies who dress with 
exquisite taste and delicacy, and who, therefore, 
cannot be distinguished from the most refined ladies 
of Paris. 

Dress is the outward and visible sign of inward 
and spiritual grace, or of the want of it. It is an 
indication of character — of order, neatness, taste, 
elegance, modesty, simplicity, pride, vanity, ostenta- 
tion, and many other good or bad qualities, when 
people freely select their costumes. But fashion 
does much to bring people into uniformity of habits 
and lives, and to destroy naturalness and the pic- 
turesque interest of society. All dress should dis- 
play and adorn the beauty of the human form, and 
conceal its defects, but never distort and deform. 

Be careful in uniting colours to complexion and 
hair, and also to each other. A rose, red, pales a 
rosy complexion ; a delicate green heightens it. 
Yellow makes a dark skin look violet. Violet makes 
people look yellow, and turns blue to green. Blue 
suits well to blondes ; while orange makes fair com- 
plexions blue, and turns yellow to green. Lustreless 
white raises the tone of all colours, and is unsuited 
therefore, to any disagreeable tint. Black lowers 
the tone of all colours, and whitens the skin, while 
it deepens the flush of the cheeks. Yellow, lilac, 
and red are the most trying colours ; and pale tints 
of blue, rose, violet, and neutral tints, pear's, greys, 
and soft warm browns, the most generally becoming. 

The cost of dress must be a matter of conscience. 



CLOTHES. 



37 



Superfluities and luxuries of attire can hardly be 
admitted when people around us are shivering with 
cold, and have scarcely enough rags to cover their 
nakedness. It is said that a lady can dress as a 
lady for fifteen pounds a-year. An ordinary allow- 
ance is twenty pounds ; but there are many who 
spend on dress enough to comfortably maintain 
several families. A gentleman can dress very well 
on ten pounds a-year ; but one can also easily spend 
that sum on gloves and bouquets for his button-hole. 
Money is better spent on dress than on many other 
luxuries ; better than on costly food, which is a 
waste of not only money, but health and life ; better 
than on costly wines or tobacco ; better than on 
any bad habits and vices. It is even a moral duty 
to dress well, tastefully, becomingly, and so as to 
give pleasure to those about us ; but the cost of dress 
must be limited by our duties to others. We can- 
not eat luxuries while others starve; we cannot be 
clothed in purple and fine linen while Lazarus lies 
naked at the gate. 

A good rule in dress as in manners is to observe 
and imitate those who have the best taste and 
breeding, with such variation as circumstances and 
conditions require. Every man should adapt his cos- 
tume to his condition and pursuits in life. There is 
one style of dress suitable to a clergyman, another to a 
physician, another to a tradesman; and artizans or 
labourers must have clothing suited to their employ- 
ments when at work, and to their position in life at 



38 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



all times. To dress beyond our means, and in a 
manner unsuited to one's position, is to dress like a 
"snob." There is a costume or style of dress most 
becoming for persons of every position in life, and 
to that they should carefully conform ; since they 
are certain to be most respected in so doing. The 
maid is not to imitate her mistress, but to dress 
neatly, tastefully, and becomingly in the style suited 
to her calling. 

We dress for our own health, comfort, and sense 
of beauty and fitness, first; and then to please, 
attract, satisfy, and delight all around us. We have 
no right to offend by rags or filth; nor even by 
uncouth forms and unpleasant colours. To dress 
decently and neatly is a duty — to dress so as to 
increase the happiness of others should be our 
delight. 



CHAPTER IV. 

DEPORTMENT. 

Deportment is the manner of carrying one's self; 
carriage, manner, or behaviour. Good looks are 
very desirable ; but far more depends upon be- 
haviour. The neatness of the person, upon which 
we have so strongly insisted, is a part of behaviour ; 
so is dress, which is a mode of expression ; and 



DEPORTMENT. 



39 



which gives us methods of enhancing and displaying 
beauties, as well as of concealing defects. 

But a handsome and well dressed person may be 
awkward and constrained in manner, stiff or slouch- 
ing in gait \ angular and extravagant in gesture ; 
sullen, haughty, insolent, cold, rude ; or shy and 
sheepish; or craving, fawning, and impertinently 
familiar. There are a hundred graces and excellen- 
cies of manner in the position of the body, the 
attitudes, movements, gestures, poses of the head, 
carriage of the arms, placing of the feet, and all 
those nameless proprieties and charms, which are in 
some the unconscious and spontaneous expression 
of their natures, and in others, are more or less 
acquired by the faculty of imitation, and careful 
training and culture. 

It needs no argument to prove that beauty was 
not intended alone nor chiefly to give happiness to 
its possessors ; and that, consequently, society has 
pre-eminent rights in regard to it. The possession 
of beauty, then, brings with it a heavy responsibility. 
You have no right to conceal, mar, or spoil it. You 
have no right to lose it, by neglect of health, or any 
habit which tends to the destruction of beauty. 
You have no right to hide it in ugly and deforming 
costumes. You have no right to mar it by any lack 
of grace and propriety of manners. 

Attitude, the simple pose of the body, is a mat- 
ter of great importance. It reveals character and 
breeding. A gentleman or lady stands confessed. 



40 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Awkwardness and vulgarity are shown in attitude. 
Once at a theatre, I saw a house, full from pit to 
gallery, give three rounds of plaudits at the simple 
silent act of a peasant girl sitting down in a chair. 
It was nothing else. It had nothing to do with the 
plot of the piece. It was simply and only sitting 
down. But what grace, and beauty, and exquisite 
delicacy were revealed in every movement, and the 
quiet, easy attitude into which she sank, was a living 
picture that charmed every beholder. 

The first polite accomplishment is to know how to 
stand. An awkward person is in a perpetual fidget, 
and changes incessantly from one uneasy posture to 
another. He knows not where to put his feet, and 
his hands are utterly superfluous. There they go — 
now behind him, now into his pockets — now under 
his coat tails ; and so he fidgets and shifts his weight 
from one leg to the other, and becomes all the more 
awkward from the consciousness of his awkwardness. 
If he could possibly forget himself, and let his limbs 
take care of themselves, it would be better. 

The conditions of good deportment are simplicity, 
or absence of affectation; ease, or absence of con- 
straint, fussiness or fidgitiness; and self-possession, 
self-command, or freedom from timidity. The whole 
is comprehended in simplicity. Simple manners are 
good manners. Quiet, easy, calm self-possession 
gives unconscious grace and dignity. 

The perfection of good manners is repose \ not 
languor, nor affected coolness, nor hauteur, but the 



DEPORTMENT. 



41 



calm, quiet, simple dignity of the true gentleman or 
lady. Such persons stand easily on both legs, but 
bearing a little more weight on one than the other ; 
the toes turn out easily, the head is a little turned, 
the body is never kept a hard straight line, — but all 
is natural ease, and unaffected grace. The arms 
hang naturally from the shoulders, the hands are in 
some quiet easy position, the fingers curve gracefully, 
with slight partings between the first and second, 
and the third and fourth. There is no stiffness, no 
uneasy shifting and fidgetting, no moving of fingers 
or features, but all is easy, rounded and graceful as a 
statue. It is worth some pains to be a man of good 
standing in society. 

One should learn no less to sit at ease. Formerly 
ladies were trained to sit upright, and never touch 
the back ot a chair. They might as well have sat 
on stools. It is now permitted to lean, and, where 
one is intimate, to lounge ; but it is never permitted 
to be awkward or ungraceful — never to stretch out 
the legs, or spread them apart. No gentleman tilts 
up his chair or sits astride it ; or fusses with his feet, 
or drums with his fingers. He sits like a gentleman 
— it is difficult to describe how ; but every one 
recognises it, and every one should do his best to 
imitate it ; or by being a gentleman, to make it the 
natural expression of his character. 

The gait and air in movement are more complex 
matters. To walk well, easily, gracefully, is a very 
important accomplishment. What we do so often 



42 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



we should do well; and walking is not only useful 
and necessary, but a great enjoyment; and every 
man's gait is the expression of his natural and ac- 
quired character. The gait may be heavy or light ; 
neat or clumsy; erect or slouching, or " slobbery/' 
quick or slow ; awkward or graceful. The walk or 
carriage of the body expresses every virtue and every 
vice, every beauty and every deformity ; habits and 
diseases. As the mind and heart are expressed in 
bodily movements, — these movements in return act 
upon the intellectual and moral faculties. The raw 
recruit drilled into the accomplished soldier, has his 
mind "set up/' and brought into soldierly habits, as 
well as his body. The training of the body certainly 
affects the mind, and there is more than an analogy 
between physical and moral uprightness and grace , 
and the drill sergeant and dancing master exercise a 
deeper influence than has commonly been recognised. 

The drill sergeant takes a booby, a clodhopper, a 
graceless vagabond. He straightens him up, turns 
out his toes, brings back his shoulders, throws out 
his chest, and in a few months makes a soldier ot 
him — a straight, well set, firm, alert, active man — a 
self-reliant, courageous soldier. And he is a different 
man forever after. His character has changed with 
his bearing. Much of the ignoble and awkward in 
his nature, which found habitual expression in his 
mien, has been suppressed, driven back, or rooted out 
like weeds; while the finer and more manly charac- 
teristics are brought into activity, strengthened by 



DEPORTMENT. 



43 



exercise, and rendered habitual ; and this man, to 
the last day of his life, shows something of the 
manner and bearing, and exhibits correspondingly 
the character of a soldier. 

And the dancing master, or teacher of gymnastics 
and the graces of posture and movement, performs a 
similar but more refined office. It is his business to 
bring out, develop, cultivate, and render habitual, 
the dignities and graces of polished life. He teaches 
the pupil how he should carry his head, strengthen 
his limbs, stand, sit, bow, walk, or dance, if dancing 
is the fashion of the time. He trains him into the 
external expression of a pure and refined, and elegant 
character; and, as in the case of the soldier, the 
external acts upon the internal, and a man becomes 
really what he endeavours to appear. And in this 
we have much of the philosophy of education and 
social culture. By exercise our dormant faculties 
are brought into action. Internal action may be 
induced by the external expression. Be what you 
would appear, certainly; but also appear what you 
wish to be. Assume the air and manner of calmness, 
and it will help you to be calm. Put on the natural 
action of any faculty, and it will excite its activity. 
Thus we may refine and purify the character. To 
" assume a virtue if you have it not," is hypocrisy, 
only when it is done for some unworthy object. 
But when we are trying to reform our lives and make 
ourselves the best we can be, we may begin with 
the external deportment. 



44 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



The carriage of the body, and habits of dexterity, 
grace, and elegance are of great importance. Chil- 
dren, it is said, are always graceful — they are simple, 
unconscious, unrestrained, unaffected; and the atti- 
tudes and movements of a child ought to be as 
pretty as those of a kitten or a bird. But we fall 
into bad habits; stoop until we grow round-shouldered; 
get into awkward, lounging ways; carry our hands 
uneasily as if they did not belong to us, and make 
ourselves generally disagreeable. A little care; a 
little resolute training ; the observation and imitation 
of ease and grace in others will do much to remedy 
their besetting sins. If a boy or man will every day 
stand with his back against a wall, and carry himself 
with physical uprightness, he will soon cure himself 
of a drooping spine. If he will resolutely let his 
arms hang quietly at his side, he will conquer the 
bashful tendency to fidget with his fingers. If a 
man will daily open his chest, and breathe full 
breaths for some minutes, he will improve his 
health and figure. Every schoolmaster and school- 
mistress ought to be somewhat of a drill -serjeant, 
and attend to the personal appearance and habits, 
carriage and manners of the pupils. This is the 
speciality of the dancing master and gymnast, no 
doubt — but as every school cannot have its special 
teacher of gymnastics and dancing, all our teachers 
should be capable of giving the rudiments at least 
of refined carriage and manners. 

In the absence of direct teaching, much is done 



DEPORTMENT. 



45 



by unconscious or conscious imitation — only we 
should know what models we ought to admire. 
Copies of the great Vance are to be met in all the 
London streets and music halls. The worst habits 
of more exalted personages have found multitudes of 
imitators. Every one who, by position or talents, 
grace or beauty, makes an impression upon others, 
is a teacher of manners. How little do people think 
of their responsibilities ! 

To walk easily the body must be erect, but not 
stiff; the arms must swing, not too far; the chest 
expanded for full breathing; the shoulders held 
back; the toes a little, but not too much, turned 
out; and all the muscles of the foot brought into a 
springy, elastic action. A fine gait in man or 
woman, as in many animals, is one of the prettiest 
things in the world. Avoid walking stifly, slovenly, 
dumpily; and ladies, because they wear long dresses, 
must not therefore be careless of their feet, turning 
in their toes, or lifting their skirts with their heels. 

Walking is good exercise; but one may have too 
much of it. It is a relief from sedentary and mono- 
tonous employment; but where there is much brain 
work, long walks are too exhausting. A short, 
brisk walk, quickening the circulation, and conse- 
quently the breathing, is better. Delicate persons 
and invalids are injured by long walks. The vital 
forces are limited, and must be used with economy. 

In our efforts to live a good life, satisfactory to 
ourselves and pleasing to our fellow-creatures, there 



4° 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



are many things we must carefully avoid. We must 
avoid every action that is painful, disgusting, offen- 
sive, or troublesome to those about us. We must 
"cease to do evil," and then "learn to do well," in 
the little things of life as well as in the most impor- 
tant. We talk of rights and freedom, but no one 
has a right to do the smallest wrong to himself or 
another. There is no freedom but the right to do 
right. Every improper act really injures both our- 
selves and many others. We have no right in any 
way to diminish our power of being good and doing 
good. A musician, playing out of tune, hurts his 
own ear, and offends the ears of all who hear him. 
The man who does a distasteful act when quite 
alone hurts his own sense of propriety; if he does it 
with others he offends them and injures himself. 

No one has the right to appear in public in a 
dirty, disorderly, or unbecoming costume. In this 
matter there is a world of difference between Lon- 
don and Paris. You may go every day to the most 
frequented public resorts in Paris without ever see- 
ing a man, much less a woman, in offensive attire. 
Can the same be said of any place of public resort 
in London? 

What belongs to the toilet should never be done 
in public. One may repair an accident, put up a 
stray ringlet, arrange a shawl, tie a string; but one 
may not comb the hair, clean the nails, or touch the 
nose or ears. It is not delicate to scratch one's 
self. Only under the most urgent necessity can one 



DEPORTMENT. 



47 



blow his nose in company. It may be wiped, not 
blown, if it can be avoided, especially at table. In 
England no one is ever seen to spit — I wish the 
same could be said of the jest of Europe and 
America. Where spitting is, unavoidable, use a 
pocket handkerchief; and in all such matters take 
great care never to be for one instant an object of 
disgust. In this matter the French and Germans 
are nearly as bad as the Americans; and Vienna is 
the only place I know of where the churches are 
furnished with spit-boxes. It is not very long since 
the English were as bad as their neighbours; and 
every reform makes us more hopeful about others. 

The use of tobacco in any form is a nuisance that 
no society ought to tolerate. It makes the breath, 
the hair, the clothes disgusting. Men who smoke 
are put in separate rooms in houses and clubs, and 
in separate compartments on railways. No gentle- 
man ever presumes to smoke in the presence of a 
lady. Such, at least, were English manners not 
many years ago ; but they have been Germanised of 
late, and thereby less civilised. A prince smoking 
in the presence of a lady is a very unpleasant spec- 
tacle; and the ladies of England would do well to 
set their faces resolutely against such an un-English 
proceeding. 

A gentleman must not have the taint of spirits 
upon his breath, nor ever be seen with the slightest 
sign of intoxication. Drinking is a low vice, and 
gets lower and lower as the people rise above it. 



4 s 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Total abstinence from all intoxicants is the only 
safety for many, and may be a good rule for most ; 
but there can be no doubt that temperance, and the 
careful avoidance of the least excess, is the rule for 
all. In these days no gentleman is ever seen flushed 
with wine, thick of speech, unsteady of gait, and 
with his brain excited or stupefied with drink. I 
wish it could be said that no lady ever was or is in 
such condition. 

And I think those who wish to live purely and 
delicately, and never injure themselves or offend 
others, must avoid coarse eating as well as coarse 
drinking. There are kinds of food which are un- 
cleanly and unsafe. I do not see how a lady or 
gentleman can eat bacon, or sausages, or pork in any 
form. Onions taint the breath too much for general 
society. If all eat onions it is different Cabbage 
is doubtful. Some kinds of fish, as herrings, not 
only taint the breath, but their odour exudes from 
the skin. A pure and inoffensive diet seems to me 
a cardinal point in good behaviour. Gross feeding, 
in quality and quantity, produces obstructions, obe- 
sity, heaviness of body and mind, and so many un- 
pleasant diseases and conditions as to unfit people 
for society, and even for life ; and gluttony is worse, 
if possible, than drunkenness, both being rightly 
reckoned among the deadly sins, any tendency to 
which every well-meaning person should carefully 
avoid. 

Try to free yourself from all annoying habits. 



DEPORTMENT. 



49 



Do not make disagreeable noises, nor any noises 
that can be avoided, in eating or drinking. Never 
hum or whistle, unless quite alone. To do either in 
company may be very disagreeable. Beware of 
snuffling, or any unpleasant sound of nose, or 
mouth, or breathing. Sleep with your mouth closed, 
so as never to snore. So resolutely guard your life 
from any impropriety that you cannot even dream of 
one; for a careful conscience never sleeps. It is 
the strong desire and resolute will to be right and 
do right that is wanting in those who do wrong. 

In a word, avoid everything wrong, everything 
improper, everything that hurts yourself or that may 
be annoying or disagreeable to others; and do what 
is just, right, good, and pleasant to all about you. 
The desire and will to do this is the foundation of 
good behaviour. There must be a good heart, then 
a good understanding, taste, tact, delicacy, all that 
belongs to an active benevolence, extending to the 
little things of life as well as the greater and more 
important. Often we cannot see our own faults; 
therefore, we should invite friendly criticism, never 
be hurt by it, and do our best to profit by it. 



D 



5° 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



CHAPTER V. 

MANNERS. 

Men are gregarious— made to live in societies — their 
well-being and happiness very largely depending 
upon their associations with each other. We come 
together in friendship, love, mutual help, and in 
many ways to benefit or amuse one another. We 
live in families, neighbourhoods, societies, churches, 
and all sorts of industrial, benevolent, civil, and 
military organisations. We are parents, children, 
brothers, sisters, masters, servants, variously related 
to those around us — bound together by common 
interests, and we should all be working together for 
the general good; all for each, each for all. The 
welfare and happiness of society depends upon the 
behaviour of its members to each other — upon what 
we call manners — upon the way in which each one 
makes himself pleasant, agreeable, and useful to all 
around him. 

I have already spoken of the care of the person 
necessary that we may avoid giving disgust or pain, 
and which will make our presence a delight ; of 
dress for comfort, health, and a decent, and even 
elegant adornment ; of the carriage of the body, or 
deportment; and now we must consider how people 
should treat each other so as to promote each other's 
happiness. 

The foundation of good manners is in that love of 



MANNERS. 



5 1 



our neighbour which religion requires as the second 
duty of every human being, and which naturally 
follows from fulfilling the first; for it is impossible for 
us to love God without loving also our fellow-men. 
This love gives us the desire to promote their well- 
being and happiness. If we have this love for them 
we can never treat them with rudeness or injustice; * 
but always with respect, sincerity, kindness, delicacy, 
and true charity. A good man has the foundation 
of good manners. The Christian must be essentially, 
and in his feelings and intentions, a gentleman, 
though he may outwardly fall short of the courtesy 
taught by St. Paul. 

One of the first points of good breeding is to respect 
the person and rights of others — never to intrude 
upon them; never to be rude; never to be in any 
way troublesome or offensive. We have something 
to learn in this matter from our neighbours. When 
a Frenchman enters the company of others, if only 
in a wine-shop or an omnibus, he deferently salutes 
the company by raising his hat, as much as to say 
"by your good leaves, ladies and gentlemen." He 
never enters a shop or cafe without politely saluting 
the person in charge, and he does the same on 
leaving. " If you please," is on his lips continually, 
and at the slightest possible offence, or the least 
accidental encroachment, he gracefully begs your 
pardon. In the greatest crowd in Paris, one is never 
crowded. Each person is careful not to incommode 
his neighbour. No matter how many may assemble 



52 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



at the doors of a theatre or other place of amuse- 
ment they never crowd each other; they never 
struggle for the best places; there is no ugly rush 
with women screaming from pain or fright, and pos- 
sibly fainting and being trampled upon. In England, 
in several instances, persons have been trampled to 
death by crowds at the doors of theatres and other 
assemblages ; and at the pit-entrance of the Hay- 
market Theatre, at a public execution, at the funeral 
of the Duke of Wellington, at the marriage of the 
Prince of Wales, dozens or scores of people have 
been trampled to death, and there is always the risk 
of such a calamity so long as people do not respect 
the personal rights of each other. To press against 
any person is a violation of such rights. It is a 
trespass — an assault. You have no right to come 
into personal contact, nor even close proximity, to 
any man without his permission; and in a gentle- 
man's conduct to a lady, this rule is more imperative. 

Every one has also the right of privacy — the right 
to be alone — the right of silence and seclusion; and 
even in the intimacy of family life, this right should 
be carefully regarded. One should never approach 
another without some indication of welcome; never 
enter the private apartment of another without being 
sure that it is not an annoyance. There is need ot 
tact in these matters, and at the least sign of dis- 
quiet, we should increase our distance. We need 
not be shy or bashful, however pretty and graceful a 
certain amount of these qualities may be, but in 



MANNERS. 



53 



kindness and in justice, as well as from self-respect, 
and the desire to stand well with others, we should 
carefully avoid intrusiveness. 

It is for the elder person to first salute, invite, or 
welcome the younger; for the person in a higher 
social position to recognise or address one in a 
lower; for a lady to be the first to salute, speak, or 
hold out her hand to a gentleman. When two 
strangers meet, if there is any obvious difference in 
age, rank, or position, it should be regarded. A boy 
should not enter into conversation with a man, nor 
a gentleman with a lady, beyond some slight civility, 
without due encouragement. When persons meet 
on equal terms, in a railway carriage, at the sea side, 
or wherever accident may throw them together, 
although there should be no intrusion, there may be 
and ought to be, on the part of every one, a frank, 
kindly, neighbourly readiness to help each other by 
word and deed. 

Very pleasant acquaintances are made, and life- 
long friendships are sometimes the result of pleasant, 
friendly, and genial manners among fellow-travellers. 
The habitual reserve of most English people is sense- 
less and cruel. 

All our conduct to our fellow-men should show 
our respect for them, our regard for their rights, our 
desire for their happiness. The first element of 
good manners is unselfishness. The moment a man 
thinks too much of himself, his own rights, his own 
happiness, he begins to be rude to others. The 



54 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



more entirely one devotes himself to securing the 
comfort and happiness of all around him, the better 
will be his manners, and good manners are " twice 
blessed." As the principle of all good conduct in 
society is the love of the neighbour, and an active 
philanthropy, so the element of all evil is egotism, 
selfishness, or the desire of one's own good and 
happiness, without regard to the rights and welfare 
of others. Thus, manners must be based on morals, 
and minor morals and major are substantially the same. 

Haughty manners are the language of pride; cold 
manners, of indifference to the comfort and happiness 
of others ; rude manners show a want of respect for 
the feelings of others; scornful manners are a disre- 
gard of their rights; cynical and hypocritical manners 
are selfish and bad ; good manners are the expres- 
sion of good feeling, grace, delicacy, and refinement, 
free from pride, selfishness, or vanity. 

A noble manner comes from a generous disposition 
— a heroic desire to sacrifice one's-self for the good 
of others. Genuine politeness shows itself to the 
poor and humble. A true gentleman is specially 
kind to the aged, the infirm, the unattractive ; to 
those least likely to receive attentions from people 
who are only seeking their own pleasure. 

Cheerfulness comes from health and hope. Animal 
spirits make us cheerful in the enjoyment of life and 
its sensations, but hope and charity give a spiritual 
cheerfulness, and even gayety of manner, which is 
very delightful. As far as possible, we should never 



MANNERS. 



55 



show gloom or melancholy to those around us. If 
we carefully conceal what is unpleasant in our 
bodies, we should do no less with our humours or 
dispositions. We should never let it be seen that 
we are angry, cross, peevish, or low-spirited, where 
such mental states can give disquiet or pain to others. 
But the best way is never to be angry, cross, peevish, 
fretful, or disagreeable. That one should feel a 
flush of anger at injustice or rudeness ; that one 
should be indignant at insult or outrage is natural — 
but in most cases there should be no violent expres- 
sion of anger and indignation. We must never 
forget ourselves and what is due to our own 
character and dignity. There should always be in 
our own feeling and expression more of sorrow than 
of anger; and we must be ready to forgive every 
injury, as we hope to be forgiven. 

A serene gayety, a courageous meeting of all the 
troubles and trials of life, is supremely good conduct 
and good manners. Calmness, patience, the firm 
possession of one's-self, are great virtues, but triumph- 
ant serenity or joyousness is more. And it is an 
emphatic precept of religion : " Rejoice always ; 
again I say rejoice." This is the triumph of the 
higher sentiments of faith and hope over the lower 
feelings of distrust, grief, and anger. But a man 
may train himself in good feeling and good conduct 
as readily as he can avoid being round shouldered. 
It wants but a resolute will to secure either bodily or 
spiritual uprightness. 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Every human being should do his part — whatever 
he is best able to do, in the work of life. An idle 
man or woman is a burden on industry; and gener- 
ally worse than a burden. Certainly it is not polite 
to live on the labour of others without rendering 
some equivalent. Doubtless there are people who 
are ornaments to society, but has any one the right 
to be merely an ornament? Can one fairly claim a 
living in the world who only amuses himself and 
does no good to others? These are serious ques- 
tions. If those who do the world's w r ork, and provide 
all the necessaries of life, are content to feed, clothe, 
and shelter persons who are merely ornamental — 
pretty to look at — it is their own affair, but it seems 
to me a point of honour that every one should do 
something for his daily bread, and not be willing to 
live upon the labour of others, without rendering 
some equivalent service. No one grudges pay for 
useful w T ork, or for ornamental work, which is only 
another kind of use. We cheerfully pay the authors 
of any book w 7 e care to read, or the painter of any 
picture w r e care to see, but we do not so cheerfully 
give a portion of our hardly earned money to support 
people in idleness who do us no good and give us 
no pleasure. We bear patiently what is, not seeing 
the way to mend it; but if any of us were to go to 
work to organise a new society, should we find any 
place in it for people who would live upon our 
industry and render no service in return ? And 
what shall be thought of the idle man who takes ten 



MANNERS. 



57 



or twenty more from every kind of useful work to 
wait upon him — when all must be fed and clothed 
by those who work? But these are matters, you 
think, rather of morals and political economy, than 
of manners. I am not sure of that. It must be bad 
manners to pick a man's pocket in any way, or to 
add to the burthen of labour, or the oppression of 
the poor, But there will be no question that to be 
disorderly in one's life; to be unpunctual; not to 
keep promises or fulfil engagements; or pay one's 
debts, is very bad manners. A gentleman should be 
orderly in the smallest matters, mindful of all pro- 
mises, duties, and engagements; always prompt, 
always punctual; never disappointing or vexing 
another by his neglect. A gentleman is one who 
can be depended upon to do what is right and just. 
Every debt is a debt of honour. Every engagement 
is sacred. You are sure that he speaks the truth. 
You know that he will keep his promise if it be 
possible. His word is as good as his bond; and he 
will do what he sees to be right in every case what- 
ever may be the law about it. Upright and downright, 
pure equity governs all his actions. You can trust 
him utterly. 

In all our relations to others, and our intercourse 
with them, we should try to enter into their views 
and feelings, and see things from their standpoint. 
" Put yourself in his place." Treat a servant as you 
would wish a master or mistress to treat you. If 
you would have friends, be friendly. Be at your 



53 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



ease in simple self-possession, and put others at their 
ease by accommodating yourself as far as you can to 
their manners. If George IV. did pour his tea into 
his saucer when he was taking tea with some old 
ladies who followed that fashion, he showed that he 
had some claim to be called the first gentleman in 
Europe. A wise conformity in little things is far 
better than the assertion of an insolent superiority. 
A delicate regard for the feelings of others is the 
essence of politeness. 

With a person of thoroughly good manners we 
are always at our ease. If we speak we are sure of 
being listened to with attention and sympathy. If 
we have a favour to ask the way is made easy. If 
granted, it is done so graciously as to double its 
value; if refused, it is so kindly done that we 
scarcely regret it, and feel sure that the refusal was 
prompted by the best motives. We meet such a 
person with pleasure, and part with real regret. A 
sunshine of geniality gives warmth and pleasantness 
to all about him. He may not have wit, but he has 
a worth far greater. He has the secret of happiness 
— the power of making every one he meets more 
content with life, more resigned to its trials, more 
happy in its enjoyments. 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 



59 



CHAPTER VI. 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 

The first and highest of human accomplishments is 
a clear, distinct, well-modulated speech. A child 
learning to talk should have good teachers. It is as 
easy to learn a refined and elegant way of speaking 
as a coarse and awkward way. Even purity and 
delicacy of tone may be in some degree acquired. 
Children are very imitative. They copy as closely 
as they can the sounds they hear. If parents, 
nurses, and teachers were nice and careful in their 
speech, children would follow their example. 

The tone of the voice indicates character ; the 
mode of speaking shows training and education. 
We never get a proper idea of man or woman until 
we have heard them speak. A vulgar man may pass 
undetected if quiet and well dressed, but his speech 
will betray him. The ear is a better judge of 
character and breeding than the eye. 

The tone of voice depends upon the firmness or 
delicacy of the organs of speech. There are vocal 
organs of wonderful flexibility and beauty — tones 
that enchant all who hear them. But every voice 
may be improved by careful culture, not only in 
childhood and youth, but at every age. 

Articulation is still more a matter of imitation or 
art. Every sound should be deliberately and care- 
fully formed, without drawling, without slovenliness, 



6o 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



without affectation. Every word should be neatly 
pronounced in the best way — the manner used by 
the most cultivated people. In English there is no 
other rule. See that the aspirates are rightly placed; 
see that the r's are properly sounded, neither too 
little nor too much ; see that the proper syllables are 
accented; see that the tones are modulated musi- 
cally and sensibly as well; that the right words are 
emphasised ; that each member of a sentence has 
the right inflection; Follow the best models you 
can hear. Speak simply, in short, familiar Saxon 
words. Speak colloquially, and not in the stilted 
language of many books. Speak naturally, and so 
as to express easily and accurately every thought 
and feeling. Clearness and accuracy of speech con- 
sist in the use of the right words placed in the most 
simple grammatical relations, without complexity or 
obscurity of meaning. We must use the right word 
in the right place. Style is picturesque in its allu- 
sions, and musical in rhythm or cadences. But in 
both speech and writing we must avoid the inflated, 
the turgid, the bombastic. Simplicity is the rule of 
good taste, in language as in manner. The author 
of Realmah says : "A weighty sentence should be 
powerful in its substantives, choice and discreet in 
its adjectives, nicely correct in its verbs : not a 
word that could be added, nor one which the most 
fastidious would venture to suppress : in order, lucid ; 
in sequence, logical; in method, perspicuous, and 
yet with a pleasant and inviting intricacy which dis- 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 



6l 



appears as you advance : the language, not quaint, 
not obsolete, not common, and not new; its several 
clauses justly proportioned and carefully balanced, so 
that it moves like a well disciplined army organised 
for conquest \ the rhythm, not that of music, but of 
a higher and more fantastic melodiousness, submit- 
ting to no rule, incapable of being taught : the sub- 
stance and form alike disclosing a happy union of 
the soul of the author to the subject of his thought : 
having, therefore, individuality without personal pre- 
dominance ; and, withal, there must be a sense of 
felicity about it, declaring it to be the product of a 
happy moment, so that you feel that it will not hap- 
pen again to that man who writes the sentence, or to 
any other of the sons of men, to say the like thing so 
choicely, tersely, melifluously, and completely." 

Speak so distinctly as to be readily heard and 
understood by those you address, and by all you 
wish to hear you. It need not usually be loud. 
Even the partially deaf hear better a low, distinct 
speech, than a loud one less carefully articulate. 

Avoid, or if you have fallen into the habit speedily 
amend it, all mumbling and muttering. Speak so 
clearly that no one can have any excuse for not 
distinguishing your words. Stammering and stutter- 
ing both come from trying to speak too quickly. 
Any stutterer or stammerer can sing, because he has 
to utter the syllables one by one, each in its own 
time. Let him speak each syllable by itself, resting 
a little on the vowels, and he will soon be cured. 



62 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Avoid the English fashion of making meaningless 
sounds between the words — of saying er, er, er, and 
humming and hawing. It is true that Sir Robert 
Peel had such a habit, and set the fashion which so 
many have followed; but it is not a sensible or 
beautiful one, and the sooner such a fashion is 
changed the better. If a man cannot remember the 
word he wants, he does not help the matter by 
making a succession of unmeaning and unpleasant 
noises. 

A worse habit, because it has even a sillier seem- 
ing, is that of laughing when one speaks. It is not 
easy to tell a funny story without at the same time 
laughing at the fun, and some can do it without 
spoiling the story; but this is different from an 
insane giggle bursting out with every sentence, even 
when there is no joke about it. Most drolleries 
come best from a sober face. 

For accent read poetry and consult the diction- 
aries. But one who associates with educated people 
can rarely go amiss; and so of pronunciation. It is 
hard to avoid provincialisms of speech in a country 
where the language of the common people in several 
counties can scarcely be understood by those who 
merely speak English. But educated men, especi- 
ally university men, everywhere speak much alike, 
though the purest English is said to be spoken in 
Dublin. But as a rule, Irishmen, Scotchmen, Welsh- 
men, and the people of Yorkshire, Lancashire, 
Lincolnshire, Somersetshire, &c., can readily be 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 



63 



distinguished by their speech. So can nearly all 
Americans — but more by the tones of their voices 
than any peculiarity of pronounciation, as, for some 
reason, they speak in a sharp, contracted, nasal 
tone, while the English sounds are broader and more 
gutteral, and French and Italian still more open. The 
French have certain sounds called nasal; but with 
most Americans all the sounds have that character. 

How it is that so many English, not only Cockneys, 
but people living in all parts of England, manage not 
only to drop their h's, but to put them wherever they 
do not belong, however difficult it may be, and why 
the absurd and perverse fashion should be kept up 
from generation to generation, no philosopher has 
explained. Compulsory education may mend the 
matter — but who began it, and why? Of course 
every one who imagines that he may be shakey 
about his aspirates, should put himself in training at 
once to get them into the right places. To do this, 
resolutely read aloud, at first, if need be, with a 
friendly critic. Practice, I have no doubt, will over- 
come the evil habit, but in any excitement there is 
always danger of a relapse. 

Next to a pure and beautiful speech, reading aloud 
is the most useful and delightful accomplishment. 
It seems as if every good speaker ought to be also a 
good reader, but it is not so at all. A man who 
converses easily, who tells a story with animation, 
who has no fault of tone, pronunciation, emphasis, 
or inflection in his speech, may be the most hum- 



6 4 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



drum and monotonous of readers. Not one clergy- 
man in ten can read the service and sermons 
tolerably. The scarcity of good readers is very 
surprising, Even of those who make a business of 
reading in public, three out of four read very badly. 
Charles Dickens read the introductions monoton- 
ously, but when he came to the story, his readings 
were very dramatic and effective. Fanny Kemble is 
a royal reader — one of the very best ; but most public 
readings are more a pain than a pleasure to hear. 

I cannot tell why it should be so, since to speak 
well, and to read as well as one speaks, seem to be 
perfectly easy and natural. Why should clergymen, 
with a thorough education and constant practice in 
reading the finest things in the language, read badly 
in so many cases? Lawyers both speak and read 
better — I think because they are more in earnest. 
They want to convince court or jury, and go at it 
with a will. 

The rule of right reading, when one has a good 
voice and good pronunciation, is to read just as one 
would speak. If a man thoroughly understands his 
author, and can make the words, his own, and utter 
them just as he would in talking when quite in 
earnest, he reads well. Here is the difficulty. With 
most people reading is a mechanical and monoton- 
ous task which has in it none of the inflections, 
graces, force, or animation of speech. How to 
learn? Read alone as if you were talking. Commit 
colloquial writing to memory, then speak it. Read 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 



65 



to children, trying to make them understand what 
you read. Resolutely throw off the constraint of 
print, and read as you would speak. I know no other 
way. 

Another useful accomplishment is that of a clear, 
legible, good handwriting. If it can be strong, 
graceful, and full of character and high breeding, so 
much the better. But only decent care is needed to 
make it as legible as print. Only decent care, and 
yet how many handwritings are so difficult to read 
that we are tempted to lay important letters aside 
and never read them. 

The best model to follow in writing is the ordinary 
italic print. With some modification of the capital 
letters, it is pretty enough, and very easy to read. 
When one has acquired a legible hand, it will gradu- 
ally shape itself into all of character and gracefulness 
one can put into it. The writing of women in this 
country is far worse than that of the men. Nearly 
all are taught the same stiff, angular, graceless hand. 
It is a fashion— I do not know its origin, but wish 
that, like other fashions, it would change. I get 
hundreds of letters from ladies all so alike that I can 
scarcely tell them apart — differing chiefly in degrees 
of cramped ungracefulness and illegibility. None of 
this writing is good, and the worst is very ugly. I 
have scarcely seen a really beautiful and character- 
istic feminine handwriting in England. Yet what a 
lovely accomplishment it is ! — for such a hand as a 
lady ought to write, is a perpetual delight. 

E 



66 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Music is a talent, and every one who has it ought 
to cultivate and use it for his own pleasure and the 
delight of others. Every one can speak, read, and 
write in some fashion, but only those who have an 
ear for music can play, and only those who have 
both ear and voice can sing. To sing well requires 
the same kind of taste and feeling that are required 
to make a good speaker or reader. 

It is a great mistake to think that every one can 
be taught to play or sing. With great pains a person 
without a musical ear may be taught to play 
mechanically on the pianoforte or other keyed in- 
strument, but never on the violin, or to sing, and all 
efforts to teach those who have not ear or voice are 
worse than wasted. Singers and musicians are like 
poets — born, not made. If the talent comes out 
spontaneously, give it opportunity for development 
It wants little more. 

The same may be said of drawing, painting, and 
all artistic accomplishments. They are gifts to be 
thankful for and made use of. It is a waste of time, 
effort, and money to try to teach them where the 
genius or special talent does not exist. 

It is well for every one to learn to dance, to learn 
to fence, perhaps to box, to practice gymnastics. 
The latter are of great use to many of both sexes, 
whose bodies need orderly exercise. They all give 
strength, grace, and presence of mind, and enable 
one to carry oneVself to better advantage. All of 
them make men more manly, and some at least make 



ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 



6 7 



women more womanly. It may be a question of 
good taste or of morals whether ladies should dance 
this 01 that style of dances at balls, but it can harm 
no child to learn to turn out his toes, to bow grace- 
fully, to carry himself well, and enter or leave a room 
with propriety. The earlier good habits of this sort 
are learned the better. I would have, in every 
school, half-an-hour every day devoted to military 
drill, and another half-hour to dancing. In London 
the poorest children learn to dance. At the sound 
of the hand-organ, they assemble in every dingy 
square and dance like mad as long as the music lasts. 
These are the bright and happy hours of lives that 
do not see too many. 

Children, from three years old to seven, learn 
languages with a wonderful facility. There seems 
something magical in the rapidity with which they 
learn to talk, and so active is the memory of words 
in early years that a child will learn three or four 
languages as easily as one. Later in life the acqui- 
sition of a foreign tongue becomes more difficult, and 
it is much more difficult with some than with others. 
Acquiring languages easily is a special gift. Some 
have been able to speak forty languages, and been 
able to acquire enough of one for conversation in a 
few hours. Others work wearily for months. Most 
persons, however, can learn to speak French, German, 
or Italian, when it becomes a matter of necessity. 
Go where you can hear nothing else, and where you 
must speak that or nothing, and you soon learn. If 



68 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



you mean to travel, by all means learn the language 
of every country you propose to visit — enough, at 
least, for ordinary uses. 

Every well educated person indeed should learn, 
as thoroughly as he can, four languages — two dead; 
two living; besides his own. He should know Latin 
and Greek, French and German. The former are 
the keys of literature and science ; the English 
language is largely composed of words deriving from 
them. French is the language of courts and society. 
German is a storehouse of literature and philosophy. 
Italian is the language of music and art. To well 
learn any language is in itself a liberal education. 
Above all, a man should thoroughly master his own, 
and he can do this only by a careful, thoughtful 
reading of its best writers, and an equally scrupulous 
avoidance of its worst. 

"Evil communications corrupt good manners." 



CHAPTER VII. 

SOCIETY. 

Society is a word of large and various meaning. We 
talk of being in society — the interests of society — a 
good position in society — fashionable society — 
general society. It is properly the friendly meeting 
of people together to enjoy conversation and amuse- 
ment with each other. To enjoy society, mutual 



SOCIETY. 



6 9 



protection, help, and to be amused with each other, 
men gather in villages and towns. Meeting often, 
they find the necessity of making themselves agree- 
able to each other. They refrain from offensive or 
injurious conduct, and they find frequent occasions 
for mutual civilities and reciprocal good offices. To 
live pleasantly with each other, men must abandon, 
or at least conceal, selfishness, injustice, evil tem- 
pers, dishonesty, falsehood, and every mean and 
annoying disposition, and become, or at least appear 
to be, kind, friendly, disinterested, obliging, cheerful, 
honest, and honourable. Contact rounds off the 
rough edges of character, and gives polish to the 
manners. Politeness, civility, and urbanity mean 
the manners of people who live in cities. 

In a large sense, every person is considered a 
member of society; but we speak of a solitary person 
as one who goes into no society — meaning one who 
neither visits nor is visited. A disreptuable person 
is not admitted into society. A morose person shuns 
society. A person of loose habits and associations 
mingles in low society. 

What is this low society? In one sense it is im- 
moral, made up of persons who disregard the obser- 
vances and moralities of the social standard. It is 
people who are poor ; who do not dress well ; who 
live in unfashionable neighbourhoods, or follow un- 
fashionable employments ; who lack cultivation, 
manner, taste, birth, or whatever is held to be neces- 
sary to good society. 



7 o 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Where a hereditary aristocracy rules, a man's 
social position depends upon his ancestors. Of such 
men it has sometimes been said that the best part of 
them is under ground; but no one can deny the 
advantages of birth and breeding. Wealth gives the 
means and conditions of the highest culture. We 
have breeds of men as distinctly marked as our 
breeds of dogs and horses, and men are born with 
noble, heroic, and beautiful qualities as they are with 
unfortunate and base ones. We speak rightly ot 
born liars and born thieves. There is, therefore, an 
aristocracy of birth, and to be well born is a great 
good fortune. But this kind of aristocracy is not 
always that of rank, title, or wealth. The child of 
healthy, honest, educated and refined parents is well 
born and a true aristocrat. 

High society is composed of people of rank or 
wealth, who are able to live in a certain style of 
luxury and splendour ; who can give elegant dinners 
and balls, and assemble around them people of taste 
and fashion. Good society is composed of good, 
friendly, intelligent, tasteful people, who can benefit, 
interest, and amuse each other. 

Everywhere in society ladies have precedence and 
honour. They are to have the first seats and the 
best seats. No gentleman can be seated while a 
lady stands. No gentleman can help himself to 
anything until ladies are helped. It is a principle 
of society that women are to be everywhere deferred 
to, protected, esteemed, and honoured. 



SOCIETY. 



71 



In the rudest regions of America when, not only 
a lady, but any woman enters a railway carriage, 
some man rises to give her a seat. On a Mississippi 
steamboat, no man is allowed to sit down at the 
table until every woman is seated. Front seats at 
public entertainments are the same price as back 
ones, but they are " reserved for ladies and when 
all passengers pay the same price, the most elegant 
carriages are, by common consent, also reserved for 
ladies — that is, for all females and their attendants. 
The same rule prevails in hotels and everywhere. 
More deference is shown to women, as women, in 
America than in any country in the world. 

Over all social festivities the lady of the house 
presides. She receives calls, gives invitations, wel- 
comes the guests, sits at the head of the table, and 
is the social queen. The husband devotes himself 
to the ladies, and generally to the comfort of the 
guests. 

To enter a society to which one is a stranger, some 
introduction is required. Going to a strange district, 
one carries letters of introduction. A man presents 
you to his friend, and vouches for your social posi- 
tion and good conduct. He introduces you to 
others. The Texan gentleman had a very proper 
idea of the responsibilities of an introduction when 
he said—" Mr. A., this is my friend Mr. B. ; if he 
steals anything, I'm responsible/' But such social 
endorsement, whether by word or letter, should not 
be lightly given. A man may not pick your pocket, 



72 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



but he may be a bore, and steal your time and 
patience. You do not wish to make the acquaint- 
ance of a man who will ever annoy or injure you — 
one whom you cannot trust in every way. 

But there are cases in which no introductions are 
required. People thrown casually together, as at 
hotels, in watering places, and generally in travelling, 
can always make modest advances towards such 
temporary acquaintance as the circumstances war- 
rant. A satirical poet has represented two English- 
men cast away on a desert island, refusing to speak 
to each other because they had not been introduced. 
It is not so bad as that. I have found a gentleman 
silent from London to Oxford, yet civil before 
coming to Evesham, and cordially shaking hands 
when parting at Malvern, after a delightful conver- 
sation. 

The two classes who most readily enter into 
conversation are those whose positions are assured, 
so that they have no trouble about them — the higher 
and the lower. A nobleman will enter readily into 
conversation with any one, sure that he will not 
compromise his dignity, just as he will carry a 
parcel, or wheel a barrow, if he has occasion to do 
so. The common people are always as courteous as 
they know how to be. It is in the middle class 
where people are always in trouble for fear they may 
lower themselves, that we find any difficulty. The 
more entirely a man is a gentleman, and the woman 
a lady, the more they are at their ease, and disposed 



SOCIETY. 



73 



to be kind, courteous, and considerate of all around 
them. It is a quality of true nobility that it " con- 
descends to men of low estate." 

No introductions are needed between people 
invited to a dinner, or tea, party or assembly of any 
kind. The fact that two persons are the guests of a 
mutual acquaintance is an introduction to each other. 
You have a right to offer a civility, or the charm of 
your society, to any lady present. You can ask any 
one to dance. You can enter into conversation. 

In society all selfishness must be laid aside ; all 
exclusiveness is in bad taste. Affianced lovers must 
not be noticeably attentive to each other, and 
husbands and wives are seldom seen together. A 
gentleman never dances with his wife, and never 
takes her down to dinner. Good taste, politeness, 
and a regard for the rights and feelings of others, 
require that we refrain in society from the assertion 
or manifestation of any exclusive right or privilege. 

It is for this reason that a man does not eat or 
drink without asking his neighbour to partake. It 
is for this reason that you never open and read a 
letter in company without the apology of asking per- 
mission. It is for this reason that all fondlings and 
familiarities before company are improper. You 
have no right to do anything which any other person 
has not an equal right to do, with the lady's permis- 
sion. The assertion, therefore, of any exclusive right 
to the caresses of your wife or mistress, in the pres- 
ence of others, is a gross indelicacy. Consequently, 



74 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



every appearance of this kind is carefully avoided. At 
table, husband and wife sit as far as possible from each 
other, and, at balls, husbands and wives are separated 
and take other partners. Society is the enlargement, 
the absorption, and, for the time being, the breaking 
up of all private and exclusive engagements. For a 
similar reason, tete-a-tetes, or the private conversation 
of two persons, exclusive and long continued, should 
be avoided. There are opportunities enough for 
private love-making, courtship, &c. If a gentleman 
wishes to see a lady alone, let him make a special 
visit for that purpose ; but in public, all talents, all 
charms, all the intelligence, and wit, and sentiment 
of conversation — all the graces and accomplishments 
are the property of all, or at least of the group of 
those who are attracted to each other by similarity 
and sympathy. 

As a rule, men and women should meet together 
in society. The influence of men upon each other, 
when left to themselves in clubs or at the dinner 
table, is not of a very refining character ; and women, 
when left to themselves, are said to indulge too 
freely in tittle tattle and scandal. Each sex has a 
restraining and elevating influence upon the other. 
Society is, properly speaking, therefore, the mingling 
of both, and assemblages which are all male or all 
female are not society. And in a social assemblage, 
every group, when it is large enough to break into 
groups, should be composed of both sexes. 

In America, where social experiments are more 



SOCIETY. 



75 



freely and boldly tried than in Europe, there are 
colleges where young people of both sexes are edu- 
cated together; living in the same boarding houses, 
eating at the same tables, and reciting in the same 
classes; and the result, I am assured, has been 
admirable in its influence upon both. The young 
men have been made more manly, and the young 
women more womanly by the influence of each sex 
upon the other. 

There should also be, I think, in all society, a 
considerable variety of ages. The model of a true 
society is a family of three generations. The un- 
natural hours of fashionable assemblies make them 
unsuitable for children; but I see no reason why 
boys and girls of fifteen, and all ages from that to a 
hundred or more, may not mingle in social gather- 
ings. The very old enjoy the company of the very 
young. I have seen three generations dancing in 
one set in a quadrille. But as no one should go 
into society who cannot in some way contribute to 
its enjoyments, the age at which one may be admit- 
ted must depend upon fitness in manners and ac- 
quirements. 

All persons in society are equal. In conversation 
and in amusements all distinctions are laid aside. 
The sole exception to this is when a procession is 
formed from the drawing-room to the dinner-table ; 
when the lady of the house takes the arm of the 
gentleman who is the most distinguished guest or 
greatest stranger, and the host offers his, next in 



;6 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



order, to the most distinguished lady, or greatest 
stranger, and then all march down in the order of 
their rank or social position. But, once returned to 
the drawing-room, all this is laid aside, and the only 
distinction is the power to please. A beautiful and 
accomplished lady is queen; the most elegant and 
interesting man is the centre of attraction. A brilliant 
commoner is better than a dull duke. By common 
consent, society lays aside artificial distinctions, and 
attends only to natural and acquired advantages, to 
character, genius, and manners. 

What we want for the enjoyment of society is the 
intelligence that qualifies us for conversation; the 
wit that makes us entertaining; the tact, delicacy, 
and regard for the feelings of others which will pre- 
serve us from doing or saying anything which can 
hurt or offend them; the amiability or kindness of 
disposition which will make us seek to make every- 
body about us happy, and the presence of mind, or 
possession of ourselves, which will allow us to say 
and do everything in the best manner. The more 
we can dismiss self, the less we have of self-conscious- 
ness, and the idea that everybody is concerned about 
us — the more we are occupied with everybody and 
everything but ourselves, the better for our social 
success. 

As women are the queens of society — as there can 
be no society, properly speaking, without them — as 
they are its one attraction and perpetual charm, 
everything depends upon their fitness for its duties 



SOCIETY. 



77 



and requirements. A vulgar or silly woman, an 
awkward or ill-tempered one, makes society with her 
impossible. Happily such women are rare. Most 
women have the gifts of grace and amiability. They 
are the natural centres around which the best 
elements of social life spontaneously gather. And 
in spite of fashionable follies and frivolities, women 
every day become more brave, self-reliant, free, noble, 
and in a word, womanly. Every day there is less 
oppression of the physically weaker, but morally 
stronger sex — stronger by influence, if not by charac- 
ter; and, with universal education, the time cannot 
be distant when women in England will be entirely 
relieved from the coarse and heavy work of coal pits 
and brickfields, and when the beating of wives, and 
cruel treatment of female children, will only be 
known in the history of a barbarous past. 

But there is nothing unwomanly or unladylike in 
every woman being industriously and usefully em- 
ployed. Every woman ought to be able to make 
her own clothing, and the clothing of at least young 
children. Every woman ought to know how to cook, 
so as to prepare a good meal in case of need, and to 
teach and direct her servants. She should be able 
to do everything that makes a house comfortable and 
elegant. Once every lady, the highest in the land, 
could make bread, and spin, and weave, as well as 
sew and embroider, and women have not gained in 
character, nor the country in prosperity, by depriving 
women of nearly all kinds of domestic work, and 



73 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



removing so many useful and beautiful arts from the 
household to the factory. Women have lost many 
useful avocations, and are now crying out for others. 
Netting, crochet, and fancy work do not satisfy them. 
Dressing and making calls is not a business for life. 
Only a few have the gifts which qualify them to be 
artists and authors. 

The lack of sensible and useful employments drives 
women into unladylike and immoral practices. They 
must do something. A young lady, full of health 
and animal spirits, cannot spend all her time in 
reading novels. She is driven to dissipation and 
flirtation. What she reads so much about in the 
three volume sets from Mudie's she wishes to 
experience. She preserves her reputation, no doubt, 
but what becomes of her character? And, in the 
absence of other interests, there comes to many 
young women the feverish desire for marriage and a 
settlement in life — a thing which should never rest 
in her thoughts. It spoils the charm of any woman 
to be thinking of a possible husband. Match-making 
mamma's are bad enough — husband-hunting girls are 
intolerable. They repel more than they attract. A 
woman is never so charming as in utter unconscious- 
ness of charm — never so attractive as when she has 
no thought of attracting. In society, all possibilities 
of future relations should be kept out of sight, and 
every one treated according to his merits. In fact, 
marriage, actual or possible, should be utterly ignored. 
Men and women in society do not meet as husbands 



SOCIETY. 



79 



and wives, or lovers and mistresses — only as mem- 
bers of society, in unrestrained freedom to make 
themselves agreeable to each other. An evident 
flirtation with any one is a rudeness to all the rest of 
the company. Special attentions are . in bad taste, 
and sure to offend. And when a lady feels that she 
has made the impression she most wished to make 
on the man she desired to attract and charm, because 
she felt his worth, though her heart may bound with 
happiness, she must no more show it than she can 
show the antipathies and disgusts excited by others. 

A true-hearted woman, with a fair amount of cul- 
ture, a person not disagreeable, with some taste and 
observation of life, and a warm benevolence, and 
desire to please, can scarcely fail to make herself an 
agreeable and welcome guest in every circle. But a 
false, uncultured one, with no taste or care for 
pleasing, critical and censorious, jealous and malici- 
ous, is one of the worst samples of the feminine part 
of humanity. 

A lady of taste, refinement, and with so much of 
wealth and fa.shion as to give her a certain position 
in society, may become the centre of a circle, a social 
pivot, an educator, and in many ways a benefactor. 
Her furniture, the order of her apartments, her pic- 
tures and statuary, her own dress and ornaments, 
may be such as to give pleasure and improvement to 
every person who visits her. Why should not her 
boudoir or drawing-room be as nicely arranged, and 
as pretty a study in art, as any picture? Is she not 



8o 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



herself, in the possibilities of her air, and manner, in 
pose and gesture, in dress and ornament, a work of 
art, as she may be much more in feeling and expres- 
sion? Her sphere is to cheer, to refine, to beautify, 
and bless. The opportunities and influence she may 
thus acquire, she may turn to the noblest and holiest 
purposes. You make a call of ten minutes on such 
a woman, and she lives in your mind and heart a 
picture of beauty, grace, and charm, for long years 
after. Her dress, her air, her sweet, engaging man- 
ner, the few well chosen words of genial politeness, 
the melody of her voice, the kind glances of her pure 
and tender eyes, the gentle pressure of her soft 
hand, all thrill in pleasant memories. 

The rules of fashion with respect to women are 
in some respects very absurd. A young unmarried 
lady must always be accompanied by her mother, 
chaperon, or some kind of protector. She is really 
as closely guarded as in Turkey, though not in the 
same way. " A young married lady cannot present 
herself in public without the protection of the hus- 
band, or an aged lady," so says fashion. If fashion 
condescended to give a reason, it would be that no 
young woman can be trusted with her own virtue or 
reputation. " They are at liberty" — we quote again 
— "to walk with young married ladies, or unmarried 
ones, while the latter should never walk alone with 
their companions." Young ladies are not even to 
be trusted with each other. " Neither should they 
show themselves, except with a gentleman of their 



SOCIETY. 



8l 



family, and then he should be a near relation, of 
respectable age/" " Young widows have equal liberty 
with married ladies/' 

If we may be permitted to make a suggestion, it is 
that wives, widows, and young ladies are much better 
able to take care of themselves, and much more to 
be trusted, than these rules would indicate. They 
smack of the seraglio ; they are but one step from 
prisons and eunuchs; they are an insult to female 
intelligence and female virtue. 

Why not say a married man can only walk out 
with his wife or some elderly person of his own sex? 
Young gentlemen should never walk alone with their 
companions; neither should they show themselves 
except with a lady of their family, and then she 
should be a near relation, of respectable age — a 
great aunt or grandmother ! 

In large towns, and wherever there may be ruffians 
to insult and even assault her, every woman should 
have protection. In well lighted, frequented, and 
especially business streets, there is little or no danger. 
The rules quoted seem intended to guard a woman 
against herself. A virtuous woman does not need 
them. 



F 



82 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ETIQUETTE. 

The word etiquette means a ticket, and the cere- 
monies of special occasions were formerly written on 
cards or tickets, furnished to each person who took 
part in them. Such cards are still delivered, in 
some places, to the mourners at funerals, and we 
have bills of fare at dinners, the order of dancing at 
balls, and programmes at entertainments. So cards 
of invitation tell us that there is to be dancing, and 
cards of admission sometimes specify what dress is 
to be worn. Thus, evening dress is required at the 
opera, and in some cases at church, as in the chapels 
of Royal Palaces. Chambers' Encyclopcedia says — 
" Popular publications are constantly issuing from 
the press for the purpose of teaching etiquette, or 
the rules of behaviour in good society. They will, 
for the most part, be found far less trustworthy than 
the promptings of nature, where the individual 
possesses a reasonable amount of reverence for 
others, and respect for himself. Yet there are 
certain conventionalities which can only be learned 
by instruction of some kind, or by observation, and 
the observation may be attended by unpleasant 
circumstances." 

It is quite true that all our manners and obser- 
vances are, or should be, founded on a common 
sense of propriety, of the duty we owe to others, and 



ETIQUETTE. 



83 



a proper regard for the comfort and happiness of all 
around us. The best and cleverest people behave 
to others in certain ways, and we observe, admire 
and imitate them. There are fashions of manners 
as of dress, but they are much less changeable. In 
the East, every act of one's life has been reduced to 
rule and system, and the etiquette of China and 
Japan has lasted, with little change, for ages. Every 
one learns all that will ever be required of him in 
his conduct to superiors, equals, and inferiors, and 
in every relation of life. In the West, we are left 
more free, and there is more individuality and origi- 
nality; but with them we have also more that is 
disorderly and offensive. It is one of the great 
discomforts of social life not to know what is the 
right thing to do, what is expected of you, and how 
you can make yourself agreeable, or, at least, not 
disagreeable to those around you. We feel "at 
home" wherever we know how to conduct ourselves. 
Bashfulness, timidity, awkwardness, and all the con- 
fusion and suffering that they cause, come from not 
knowing how to behave. The moment we know 
what we ought to say and do, everything is easy and 
delightful. A sensitive mind fears nothing so much 
as being blundering and ridiculous. There are few 
of us who are quite free of some dread of " Mrs. 
Grundy." 

Education in etiquette begins very early. The 
mother trains the child from its earliest years — the 
child imitates its oarents. Children are continually 



8 4 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



warned that this is not nice, and that that is not 
proper. A child brought up by and among well- 
behaved people, can hardly go amiss unless from 
natural perversity. The misfortune is, that nurses, 
servants, and even teachers are taken from the lower 
ranks of life, and in many cases have no aptitude 
for good manners or no instruction. If servants 
were selected for their good manners ; ii they were 
required among the qualifications of teachers, the 
demand would create the supply. Observation and 
imitation would be stimulated if good manners were 
the condition of success in life. 

But there is wanting, first of all, the desire, and 
then the perception of deferent and refined be- 
haviour, and of its two elements, self-respect, and 
respect for others — true self-love and the love of the 
neighbour. The stolid indifference to all decent 
manners we see about us, comes from a want of 
sense of their importance, much more, I believe, 
than from a brutal disregard of what is right. When 
workmen stand upon the side-walk, so as to oblige 
women to step into the gutter to get past them, it is 
charitable to think they are muddled with beer. 
When people crowd and crush you, and make mad 
rushes to get the best positions, violating every 
principle of decent manners, it seems like innate 
depravity — but it is, perhaps, only a bad habit which 
they have thoughtlessly drifted into. And this exhi- 
bition of brutal selfishness is not confined to the 
lower ranks of life. The crowding and confusion 



ETIQUETTE. 



85 



are sometimes as great in the palace of the sovereign 
as at the pit entrance of a theatre. When George IV. 
left Carleton House the fashionable world was 
admitted to see its splendours. The result was a 
crowd in which ladies were crushed, trampled upon, 
and in some cases their clothes entirely torn from 
their bruised bodies. Such manners are what we 
might expect in a horde of savages. Surely they are 
not such as we look for among an enlightened and 
Christian people. 

If the manners of the upper and middle classes 
were more gentle, refined, polished, courteous, and 
Christian, they would have their influence upon the 
lower class in their behaviour to each other, and 
especially to women and children, and even to dumb 
animals; and our newspapers would not be filled 
with the details of violence and cruelty — men 
horribly beating, and often murdering, their wives 
and little ones. It is the disgrace of the aristocracy 
of any country when any portion of its lower classes 
are ignorant, drunken, and infuriated savages. They 
are responsible for it by their example or their 
neglect. What is the use- of a noble lord if he 
cannot instruct and influence those about him? A 
nobleman is a civiliser — he has no other raison d'etre. 
The lower classes of the English people are drunken, 
because there was once in England such a saying as 
"drunk as a lord." If aristocrats kill horses in fox 
hunts and steeple chases, is it wonderful that colliers 
should have dog fights, or costermongers beat 



86 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



donkeys? The lower classes copy the manners and 
morals of the higher, and the sooner the wealthy and 
educated people of England become humane in their 
pastimes, and kind and gentle in their behaviour, 
the sooner will a true civilisation spread through all 
classes. A virtuous sovereign diffuses the love of 
virtue among millions. A dissolute one is an 
unspeakable misfortune. And so in degree of every 
person whose position, wealth, or social importance 
of any kind, gives him social influence. 

The little observances of social life are more im- 
portant than many people think them. The outward 
signs or expressions of any sentiment not only mani- 
fest it to others, but help to keep it active in our- 
selves. This is the use of all ceremony and ritualism 
in religion. We strengthen our own reverence by 
external expressions, and help to excite it in others. 
A great assembly kneeling with bowed heads in 
prayer, or uniting in songs of fervent praise, is very 
impressive. And the same principle governs all 
social ceremonies and observances. 

Salutations are social ceremonies. A gentleman 
raises his hat as a mark of respect; he touches it to 
intimates; he takes it off to ladies, and when he 
stops to speak to them, or to persons to whom he 
wishes to show a marked deference, he does not 
put it on till requested to do so. The hat is touched 
or raised with the hand farthest from the person 
saluted. 

We do not salute a friend who is engaged with a 



ETIQUETTE. 



87 



lady or a person superior in rank whom we do not 
know; but we join a friend in returning the saluta- 
tion of a stranger to ourself. It is the right of a 
lady to recognise an acquaintance or not at her 
pleasure; and unless very intimate, a gentleman 
waits for such recognition. So of stopping for con- 
versation. If we wish to converse more than a 
few moments, it is better to turn and walk with the 
one we meet. But a lady or superior must give the 
invitation. In passing persons frequently, you are 
not to salute every time. Once is sufficient. 

Visitors — if strangers — we meet according to rank, 
position, or intimacy. A gentleman meets a lady at 
the front door, and accompanies her to the side- 
walk, or puts her into the carriage, at her departure ; 
and the same with any person to whom he wishes to 
show particular consideration. A lady receives in 
her drawing-room, and does not leave it for gentle- 
men unless age or position call for special deference. 
Ladies treat ladies as gentlemen do each other. 
The visitor salutes his hostess first and last. The 
manner in which we salute all persons should express 
the respect and kindness we feel for them, or ought 
to feel, and which they ought to merit. By treating 
every one with courtesy we in fact demand of them 
the character and manners which merit our respect. 
We, in this way, put everybody on his good be- 
haviour. A polite man is thus not only a teacher of 
politeness, but a practical reformer of manners and 
morals. 



88 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



The place of honour in a room is the farthest 
from the entrance — at a fireside, the corners; at 
table, the right of the hostess and host. 

Introductions are a convenient mode of making 
people acquainted with each other. The one who 
introduces becomes responsible for the good be 
haviour of both. No one ought to introduce to 
another a man who will insult or swindle, annoy or 
injure him. There are special introductions only 
for particular objects. At a ball a gentleman is 
introduced to a lady simply as her partner for a 
dance. She is not required to recognise him again. 
In merely formal introductions people bow to each 
other, but do not shake hands. Hand shaking 
should be the sign of a friendly intimacy. When a 
lady gives her hand to a gentleman, it should mean 
that she accepts his friendship. The Americans 
shake hands everywhere and with everybody. There 
is abundant hand shaking among the Germans. The 
English and French are more properly reticent. It 
is for the person to whom one is introduced to offer 
or withhold his hand. 

As a rule, introductions should not be given 
except at the request or with the permission ex- 
pressed or understood of the persons introduced : 
but intimate friends of both parties may presume 
upon its being desirable and agreeable. The in- 
ferior in age or position is always introduced to the 
superior, and gentlemen to ladies, unless there is a 
marked difference in rank or age; but when equals 



ETIQUETTE. 



8 9 



are introduced the form is repeated, and so each 
introduced to the other. 

A letter of introduction should be brief and con- 
fined to the matter in hand, and given unsealed to 
the bearer. If given for any purpose of business, 
you can call and send it in with your card. Other- 
wise send it with your card, and wait to have 
it acknowledged. If the letter is addressed to 
a lady, however, you must call, send it in, and of 
course give her time to read it. 

Calls are very brief visits made in the morning, 
but the fashionable morning is any time before 
dinner. Morning calls should, however, never be 
made till sometime after lunch — say three o'clock, 
nor later than five ; since people dine at from six to 
eight o'clock, and must have time to dress. Usually 
no call should last more than fifteen minutes, and 
when other visitors arrive, it may be shorter. As 
there is no obligation to see people, ladies who do 
not wish to seem rude tell their servants to say "not 
at home" to those they decline to see. They may 
be indisposed or engaged, but " not at home " is a 
formula which covers the whole ground, and is not 
to be taken literally. It may mean not " at home " 
to you on this occasion; and to most callers it is a 
welcome announcement. They leave a card, which 
answers every purpose of a merely formal visit. 

Even this matter might be simplified. In a certain 
German town it was once the custom for everybody 
to call upon all his acquaintances on new years. As 



9° 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



the town grew this became such a burthen to callers 
and entertainers that they got to sending cards 
instead, which set all the servants in the town to 
running their feet off. Finally the servants took all 
the cards to a central place, where they were sorted 
over, and each one carried home those intended for 
his family, which is the present excellent time-and- 
labour-saving custom. 

A call, or the card, its equivalent, must be returned 
within a week; and every entertainment, dinner, 
ball, to which you are invited, must be responded to 
by a call, if you desire another invitation. When 
about to be absent for some time, it is expected that 
you will make a farew r ell visit to your acquaintances. 
If you do not see them, leave your card with P. P. 
C. upon it — " Pour prendre conge" On your return, 
you are entitled to receive the first visit. 

When a clergyman comes to a new parish, he calls 
ex- officio upon every family in the place — upon the 
poorest first, upon the most wealthy and distinguished 
last, excepting the sick and afflicted, w r ho of course 
have precedence over all others. These calls are 
not to be returned; the tax upon the clergyman's 
time w r ould be too heavy. Should he be married, 
however, the ladies call upon his wife and welcome 
her with due respect to their society. Other profes- 
sional men make calls, but they are more of a 
business than a social character. 

Receptions are admirable inventions for economy 
and enjoyment. Instead of spending time in calls. 



ETIQUETTE. 



or money in dinners, parties, balls, &c., a lady sends 
a card to all her friends to inform them that she is 
" at home ;; on some evening once a-week. If she 
manage her cards well, she may gather around her 
a delightful society. She has only to offer her 
visitors a cup of tea or coffee when they arrive, and 
a bit of cake or a sandwich and glass of wine later. 
No formal supper is expected. There is conversa- 
tion and music. The more really at home the 
hostess is, the better for her visitors, who come early 
or late, and stay as short a time or as long as they 
like. It is obvious that there can be only here and 
there one who can have such evenings; and no 
lady can expect to fill her rooms week after week 
unless she has the tact to draw to her agree- 
able people, and, what is far more difficult, to 
order, regulate, and govern her guests, and banish 
bores, disagreeabs, and incompatibles from her 
society. 

At these receptions the less formality the better. 
Every one is introduced already by the fact of his 
admission. If you know the lady hostess you know 
all her guests, and you can in no way please her so 
much as by making yourself agreeable to any and all 
of them, and especially to any who are, or who seem 
liable to be, neglected. As at your entrance you go 
and pay your respects to the lady of the house, so at 
your departure you very quietly take your leave of 
her at last, after having said a private good-bye to 
any others, and so vanish without disturbance. 



92 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Neither in arriving or departing should a guest of 
any rank below royalty allow himself to make a sen- 
sation. Still, to all who must necessarily observe 
you, there must be some sign of courtesy. One 
should never enter or leave even an omnibus or 
railway compartment without some, if ever so slight, 
mark of respect. 

In all cases where there is a set time of beginning, 
the highest etiquette is perfect punctuality. No one 
can dine until the last guest arrives. To keep people 
waiting, to make a dinner spoil, is more than an im- 
politeness — it is an outrage. So, at a theatre or 
concert, be in your place before the curtain rises, so 
as not to disturb the enjoyment of others; and 
never be so rude as to leave just before the play or 
concert ends. Leave at the end of the last act or 
piece of music but one, if you please; but to disturb 
an audience by going out at the very climax of 
interest is a very selfish piece of ill manners. But 
in almost all cases ill manners is some display of 
selfishness. Good manners consists in a considera- 
tion for the feelings and rights of others. What 
right have you to mar the enjoyment of music or a 
play by conversation? What right to stand up 
before people who are trying to see some spectacle? 
Every way in which you consult your own gratifica- 
tion at the expense of others is unmannerly and 
unjust. An honest man does what is right or 
equitable; a polite or courteous man goes always 
beyond this line, and high breeding is philanthropy. 



ETIQUETTE. 



93 



No man of gallantry would allow a lady to wait 
for him one moment; and simple honesty requires 
that every one should be punctual in keeping en- 
gagements. To make sure one should be a few 
minutes before the time, at all events not an instant 
after So every railway company should be held 
strictly to its time-tables. The minute of arrival and 
departure at every place is a part of its contract 
with every passenger. 

And let us advise punctuality in going as well as 
in coming, and especially celerity in taking leave. 
If parting be a pain, do not make it wearisome as 
well. If we " speed the parting guest," he should 
say goodbye, and go at once. It is not necessary to 
be rudely abrupt, but in saying goodbye, the sooner 
it is over the better for all concerned. Suspense is 
painful to the parties, and tiresome to spectators. 

When two ride on horseback, one must ride 
behind. Precedence is a necessity, and when it is 
regulated, we avoid confusion. If every one insisted 
upon being first and best, it would fill the world with 
quarrels. If we followed everywhere the Christian 
rule of taking the lowest place, in honour preferring 
one another, and seeking, not our own, but another's 
good, it would fill the world with peace. Think of 
carrying this rule into all our bargains and business ! 
Every one can see that practical Christianity would 
reform the world. 

In all civilised countries, where distinctions of 
rank or position are recognised, there are some rules 



94 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



of precedence for occasions of state and ceremony. 
In England the order of precedence has been 
established by statutes, royal letters patent, and 
ancient usages. The constable and marshal in the 
Court of Chivalry settled the rank and place of every 
one. Persons of the same rank follow each other in 
the order of the creation of that rank. In the 
English peerage the younger sons of each preceding 
rank take place after the eldest son of the next suc- 
ceeding rank. Married women and widows take 
the same rank among each other as their husbands, 
unless such rank be professional or official — but no 
office gives rank to wife or children. Unmarried 
women rank with their eldest brother; but the wife 
of the eldest son precedes her husband's sisters, and 
all other ladies of the same degree. Marriage with 
an inferior does not take away a lady's rank. 

The tables of precedence among men and among 
women in England would fill several pages. The 
first begins with the Sovereign, the Prince of Wales, 
sons of the Sovereign, grandsons, brothers, uncles, 
nephews. Then come the King of the Belgians, the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, 
other Archbishops, Officers of the Court, Dukes, 
eldest sons of Royal Dukes, Marquises, eldest sons 
of Dukes, and so on through Earls, Viscounts, 
Bishops, Barons, Officers of the Royal Household, 
Knights of the Garter, Privy Councillors, Lord Chief 
Justice and other Judges, Baronets, Bannerets, 
Knights, Esquires, Clergymen, Barristers, Physicians, 



ETIQUETTE. 



95 



Officers of Army and Navy, Citizens, Burgesses. 
Women follow in the same order, except as noted 
above. 

In society, and on all but state occasions, all these 
nice distinctions are laid aside. Honour is paid to 
age, merit, genius, beauty, accomplishments, and 
whatever can or ought to command our respect, 
esteem, or admiration. The best society is that 
which is most free from artificial distinctions, and 
where it is more to be a lady than a duchess ; and a 
simple gentleman, without rank or fortune, can, by 
the mere force of talents and manners, stand in the 
highest place. It is only at formal dinner parties 
that any trouble is made about precedence, and then 
only in the order of going to the dining-room and 
sitting at table. 

In the street, the place nearest the wall is the 
place of honour, because of safety. We give the 
wall to the aged, to women, to all to whom we wish 
to defer, I should be sorry to know any gentleman, 
whatever his rank, who would not turn out and 
even step off the sidewalk for the poorest woman 
carrying a baby or any burthen. 

In a crowded thoroughfare, the rule is for every 
one to keep to the right. In riding and driving in 
this country, but only here, so far as I know, people 
turn to the left in meeting; in passing they take the 
right. Railway trains keep the left side of the track. 

A gentleman not offering his arm to a lady on a 
staircase, usually precedes her going up, and follows 



9<5 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



her coming down. On a ship, one keeps to the 
leeward of a superior. The chief officer is the first 
to step on deck, and the last to leave it. 

As a general rule, we do well to conform to the 
customs of the place or country we are in, showing 
thereby our friendly respect to the people we are 
among. If we visit a church, we should behave as 
nearly as possible like those who worship in it. If we 
cannot conscientiously do this, we had better keep 
away. So a republican, visiting a monarchical country, 
should be careful to pay the customary respect to 
royalty, and to conform generally to social usages. 
The first Christian Missionaries to China found their 
way to the hearts of the people by adopting their 
dress, learning their code of etiquette, and conform- 
ing, as far as possible, to their customs. 

The way to learn all one needs to know of the 
etiquette and manners of any society is to be quiet, 
self-possessed, and observant. Notice what well-bred 
and easy-mannered persons do, and follow their 
example. Never be ashamed of not knowing any- 
thing, but take the first opportunity to ask some one 
what you wish to know and cannot find out for 
yourself. A request for information is always flatter- 
ing. Every one is naturally pleased to show his 
superiority. Every one is happy to give information 
to another, and guide him in the way he should go. 
People whom I should not like to ask for sixpence, 
freely give any amount of information, advice, or 
criticism. The very young man who wishes to 



CONVERSATION. 



97 



improve his manners, will do well to put himself 
under the tuition of some lady older, perhaps con- 
siderably older, than himself, who, if he is docile, 
sensible, and grateful, will be delighted to teach him 
all he needs to know. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CONVERSATION. 

" Good talk," says the author of Realmah, " is ever 
one of the choicest things in the world, and wins all 
people who come within its sphere." Our social 
life is chiefly conversation — a turning together — the 
interchange of thought and feeling. 

It is probable that all animals which associate with 
each other have language and conversation — some 
method of communicating information and expressing 
feeling. Ants and bees evidently talk with each 
other. When a prize is at hand, or danger threatens, 
the whole swarm is quickly told of it. They act 
in concert. They carry on complicated operations 
quite impossible without some power of conversa- 
tion. The hen clucking to her brood calls them to 
the food she has discovered, gathers them under her 
wings, or gives warning of danger when she sees a 
hawk hovering in the sky. In a morning of spring, 
when the groves are full of melody, it must be that 

G 



9 3 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



the melody has meaning, and that every phrase is 
understood, at least by birds of the same species. 
The lowing and bleating herds must also talk to each 
other. Dogs talk together, and they learn to under- 
stand us much better than we do them. The 
elephant has a very human comprehension of the 
orders of his keeper; and elephants who live in 
societies hold converse with each other. 

" Steed threatens steed in high and boastful neighings." 

The conversation of animals is natural or instinc- 
tive. If men ever had such a natural language, it 
has been lost. Instead of it we have hundreds of 
dialects made up of artificial, conventional, articulate 
sounds. What we have of instinctive language con- 
sists in gestures, grimaces, tones, modulations, in- 
flexions, emphasis. Whatever language men speak, 
we know by sight and hearing whether they are 
pleased or vexed — whether they hate or love. 

Our conversation is therefore partly natural or 
instinctive in tones, gestures, and expressions of the 
countenance, laughter, tears, and all the picturesque- 
ness and melody of speech; and partly artificial and 
conventional in the use of words, or articulate 
sounds, whose meaning has been agreed upon. The 
beauty of all conversation consists in the choice and 
admixture of these two elements of language. We 
like to see those with whom we converse. The 
glances of the eye, the flushings of the cheek, the 
-smiles or frowns, and all expressions of feeling on 
the mobile face, the motions of the head, the slight 



CONVERSATION. 



99 



shrugs of the shoulders tell as much as, often far 
more than, the spoken words. Then how much 
more expressive is speech than writing. The written 
word has one meaning — the spoken word may have 
a dozen. We vary it with every mode of utterance. 
Written language, however carefully taken down, 
may give but the faintest idea of the eloquence, or 
even the meaning of a speaker. Thus no reporter 
can do justice to some orators, who have produced 
the strongest impression upon multitudes of hearers ; 
and people delight us with the warmth, grace, and 
vivacity of their conversation, whose words, if accu- 
rately written down, would seem tame and insipid. 
The life that goes with the speech is wanting. In 
reading, words have what we are able to put into 
them. Good readers are those who can express the 
sense and sentiment of a writer as he would wish to 
express them himself in speech. 

As we all talk more or less ; as conversation is 
the life, the nervous circulation of the social body, 
we should try to talk well. To do this we must 
have intelligence, knowledge, facts of interest, things 
and thoughts, ideas and sentiments, which others 
may wish to hear; and we must be able to convey 
our ideas in a clear and pleasant manner. 

Every one can bring something to the common 
stock of conversation — the commerce of knowledge 
and thought, where all freely receive and freely give. 
The preacher is paid for his sermons, the lawyer for 
his opinions, the doctor ior his prescriptions, the 



100 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



author for his writings, but conversation is generous 
and free. It asks only reception and appreciation. 
Those who have are eager to bestow their treasures, 
and good listeners are as necessary as good talkers, 
and required in much larger proportions, for to every 
talker there ought to be ten listeners. When com- 
panies divide into couples, and a large room is full 
of the hum of private discussions, it can scarcely be 
called conversation. A large party must break into 
groups, but not into couples. When people know 
how to listen as well as how to talk, the larger the 
group the more life and variety to the conversation. 
I doubt if two persons can properly occupy them- 
selves in conversation without an apology to the rest 
of the company. 

It is well that every group should have its leader 
or centre; not always the one who talks most or 
best, but the one who listens, manages, suggests, and 
draws out or gives opportunities to others. A lady 
of tact and intelligence does this best. She guides 
conversation as the coxswain steers the boat, or the 
four-in-hand driver manages his team, checking the 
restive, touching up the dull, and keeping all in 
order and up to their work. A lady who can do 
this, not only for a single group, but for a drawing 
room full of guests, arranging compatibilities, and 
seeing that all are having the best enjoyment of 
their opportunities, is fit to be a hostess and social 
queen. 

If the first qualification for conversation is to know 



CONVERSATION. 



IOI 



now to speak, it is, in some ways, a more important 
one to know how to listen. We draw out, encourage, 
excite, and elevate by our manner of receiving and 
accepting what one says. The orator gets life, sug- 
gestion, and support from his audience. He is 
borne up by the waves of their appreciation. The 
supply follows the demand. Good listeners make 
good talkers. 

A good listener never interrupts, unless very 
adroitly with a question or objection, which is also 
a suggestion and help to the speaker. A good lis- 
tener is patient and courteous, and does his best to 
give every one his full opportunity. He does not 
necessarily agree with what is said. The free ex- 
pression of differences of opinion is the life of 
conversation ; but a courteous, and even friendly 
toleration is its necessity. There is a limit to the 
proper expression of feeling in conversation ; and 
dissent may be very decided, without being violent 
or disrespectful. 

We must have the same regard to the rights of 
others in conversation that we ought to have in 
business. Let every fact have its place, and every 
argument its weight. To interrupt, overbear, crush 
with clamour, silence with assumption, are violations 
of equity, as well as politeness. We may discuss 
freely, but never dispute ; we may fairly controvert, 
but we have no right to denounce. And we can 
never impute bad motives to persons who hold 
opinions contrary to our own. A man may be wrong 



102 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



in his facts, absurd in his logic, and his doctrines 
may be ever so distasteful, or even dangerous, but 
he must be treated with kindness and civility, and 
his motives judged of with charity. 

It is better, perhaps, that subjects which excite 
strong emotions, and are liable to produce partisan 
conflicts, should not be made subjects of conversa- 
tion in general society. In a country where there 
are so many religious sects and opinions, giving rise 
to violent animosities, it may be well to banish 
religious discussions entirely ; but when newspapers, 
pamphlets, books, treating of such subjects, are read 
by almost every one, it is very difficult to keep 
them out of general conversation ; and conversation 
is, as it must be, more polite than writing. Men 
write of Roman Catholics, or Ritualists, for example, 
what they would never think of saying to them at a 
dinner-table. At a table where Brigham Young was 
a guest, no one would abuse the Mormons. The 
strongest Churchman would be civil to Mr. Spurgeon ; 
and Mr. Spurgeon, I have no doubt, would treat 
His Holiness the Pope with all the courtesy due to 
his character and position. Thus society is a 
civiliser, and men of the most opposite views learn 
to treat each other like gentlemen. 

To be a good listener, then, we must be very 
tolerant — not of error itself, but of its expression ; 
not to the fault, but of the individual who is faulty. 
As one may detest the sin, and yet love the sinner, 
so one may reprobate what he esteems a false 



CONVERSATION. 



opinion with entire calmness and unfailing courtesy. 
To be a good listener, we must be entirely self-pos- 
sessed, ''swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath." 
It is polite to listen ; it is often a real charity. We 
gain more esteem by what we hear than by what we 
say. Perhaps the highest art in conversation is to 
make others talk. The man who hears you may be 
bored ; the man who talks to you never is. He may 
be dissatisfied with your views ; he is sure to be 
pleased with his own. And if a man is tiresome, or 
becomes so by talking too much, the best way to 
escape is by a compliment. Thank him for the 
pleasure he has given, and do not deprive others of 
the benefit of listening to his instructive remarks. 
We are not to be insincere ; for everybody is instruc- 
tive, though too much of some kinds of instruction 
may become monotonous. But a man of tact will 
be able at any time to give a new turn to conversa- 
tion, and adroitly throw it into the hands of a more 
entertaining coloquist. 

Every one who goes into society — that is, who 
meets his fellowmen anywhere where conversation is 
possible, should know how to talk. I have written 
of speech as an accomplishment. We should speak 
loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to 
stun those who are near us. Boisterousness is a 
sort of insolence. But we should speak with perfect 
distinctness, so as never to be obliged to repeat a 
sentence. An even flow of speech is a great comfort 
to the hearers. It is a pain to listen to people who 



104 HOW TO BEHAVE. 

speak painfully, and find it difficult to get out their 
words. Speech should be easy, simple, graceful, 
and, if possible, picturesque, animated, and melodi- 
ous. There is no music like beautiful speech. 

But the matter of speech must be as choice as the 
manner is good. When we have said good morning, 
and made our congratulations or condolences on the 
state of the weather, and enquired about the health 
and conditions of mutual acquaintances, there is 
still something to be said. The world is full of 
interesting things, near or remote. Generally the 
near things are the most interesting. A burglary in 
the same street is more to us than the destruction of 
a city in another hemisphere. 

We cannot compel people to take an interest in 
the things that we consider most important. We 
must take the topics that are current at the time. If 
a great war is raging, it absorbs all interest. So a 
trial at law may fill newspapers and conversation. 
Some political movement, or some social scandal 
may be the topic of the time. We must do our best 
with the materials at hand ; and what we need is a 
point of departure. When the conversation is 
begun, no one can quite tell what course it will take. 

In talk there must be no monopoly. No one 
person ought ever to speak more than two or three 
minutes. Anecdotes or stories can only be used for 
illustration, and the most interesting one should not 
last five minutes. Give lectures, or go to lectures if 
you will, but there must be no lectures in conversa- 



CONVERSATION. 



tion. Every person who wishes to speak must have 
the opportunity to do so just as much as to eat and 
drink ; and when a man has had his say on any 
subject, he cannot do better than to turn to some 
silent, but interested person — one of another sex if 
convenient, and see what new contribution can be 
made to the common stock. 

And almost every conversation is the better if 
seasoned with wit and enlivened with gaiety. 
Humour is a gift, like poetry or music. Fun bursts 
out like fire. Wit is different. Some are quick- 
witted, and are always ready with some pertinent or 
impertinent remark, but others think out their retorts, 
as Byron did, and only come to them next day. 
Such people do well to think over all probable 
matters of conversation, and have their impromptus 
ready. But why should not a man who is giving a 
party have his good things laid out with his clean 
linen, and all his jokes, and puns, and repartees in 
readiness, as one packs a hamper for a pic nic ? 

With a full mind and a good memory, no one can 
be at fault. The good memory supposes order and 
self-possession. But all conversation should seem 
to be spontaneous, and prompted by the occasion. 
Story-tellers should have good memories, not only 
for the details of their anecdotes, but to avoid telling 
them too often in the same company. The same 
story should not be told more than twice, unless 
urgently demanded. 

The specially social quality is good nature, amia- 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



bility, the desire to please, the kindness of heart that 
avoids giving offence, and cannot bear to hurt any 
one's feelings. A good-natured person may frankly dis- 
agree with you, but he never offends. He quarrels 
good naturedly. He boxes with gloves on — when he 
fences ever so deftly, there is a great soft button on 
the end of his foil. He may satirise, ridicule, open 
up all your weaknesses and absurdities, but so kindly 
that you cannot help loving him. He cannot say a 
harsh, hard, bitter, or contemptuous thing, because 
he has no hardness and no contempt. This is 
simple, natural goodness, like the goodness of fond 
and friendly animals. It may not be a high moral 
virtue 3 there is no particular merit in it any more 
than in beauty or any natural gift, but it is a very 
delightful quality, and those who do not possess it 
should imitate those who do. Just as we avoid in 
person, dress, or manners, anything that may give 
disgust or pain, so must we do in our conversation. 
We must no more use vulgar expressions than we 
would wear vulgar garments. Our talk should be 
as clean as our fingers. We should no more bite 
one with our words than with our teeth. An angry 
word is as bad as a blow, and a satirical word is like 
a sting. If we are never to say anything to a person 
which will give him disgust or pain, we must be 
even more careful not to say anything of any one 
which will injure him in the estimation of others. 
Playful, good-natured criticism upon the little foibles 
and peculiarities of others, may be no harm, and 



CONVERSATION. 



even useful, but it ceases to be good-natured when 
it gives pain. Slander is a sin much worse than 
theft. Charity forbids that we should even tell the 
truth, when that truth can wound and injure. The 
best rule is to say all the good we can of every one, 
and to refrain from ever saying evil, unless it becomes 
a clear matter of duty to warn some one against him. 

At table, every subject must be such as will not 
interfere with appetite and digestion. The conver- 
sation should be light, so as not to tax the brain 
when the life-forces are gathered to the stomach. It 
should be cheerful, which is another name for con- 
vivial. It is better not to talk of food, because if 
people speak of their likings, they may also speak 
of their dislikes, and what one is fond of may dis- 
gust another. There should never be mentioned at 
table any subject of possible disgust. Some say 
one should never mention at table anything which 
might not properly be placed upon it. Conse- 
quently one should never mention disease, or medi- 
cine, or anything connected with either. If one 
speaks of a voyage, he must omit the interesting 
fact of his having been sea-sick. At all well-regu- 
lated water-cure establishments there is an absolute 
rule against the mention of disease or treatment. 
There may be no harm in saying, " I had a glorious 
douche this morning but the discussion that 
might arise is to be avoided. Generally, nothing 
must ever be said at table which could, directly or 
indirectly, excite disgust. No more must there be 



io8 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



said anything to excite anger. This is, of couise, 
the rule in all conversation ; but it is especially 
dangerous to get angry over one's dinner. Perfect 
good nature, and a certain degree of hilarity, befit 
every feast. . People who are serious and thoughtful 
at table, are liable to become dyspeptics. The 
conversation should therefore be easy, playful, and 
mirthful. Party politics and sectarian religion may 
therefore as well be postponed. Speeches at dinners 
are a mistake. A man who is going to make a long 
set speech cannot properly dine. Men who have 
just dined are not in a condition to listen to serious 
speeches. If speeches are made, they should be 
well besprinkled with "roars of laughter." 

In England, ladies leave the table soon after the 
dessert is served, and the gentlemen draw closer for 
wine and talk. A few years ago they drank much 
more wine than was good for them, and much of 
their conversation was quite unfit for ladies to hear. 
In our better days, no gentleman dares to reel back 
to the drawing-room ; and the conversation of gentle- 
men is never indecent. Under these reformed con- 
ditions, why should the ladies leave the table at all, 
until all can go together as they came ? There is no 
reason, but that Englishmen cling to all the old cus- 
toms, however unreasonable. If a thing has been 
done once, the precedent is established, and it must 
be done forever. But nothing can be done the first 
time, because it is unprecedented. In France, ladies 
and gentlemen leave the table together. We have 



CONVERSATION. 



books of the table talk of famous talkers from 
Martin Luther — much of whose talk, even that 
printed, not many ladies would like to read — to 
Sidney Smith, one of the most genial and benevo- 
lent, as well as wittiest of coloquists • still, the din- 
ner-table is not the place for intellectual conversa- 
tion. The tea-table suits it better. The reception 
and the converszatione, where the refreshment of 
the body is quite a secondary matter, are places for 
real conversation. Morning parties on the hills, in 
forests, on shaded lawns, where well-assorted groups 
can read and talk, are perhaps best of all. 

To talk well, we must have both sense and know- 
ledge ; but one who has sense must have knowledge 
also. The experience and observation of every one's 
life is an education. He who knows himself knows 
the most of what is worth knowing ; and all know- 
ledge consists in self-knowledge, and the knowledge 
of our relations to the world around us. Common 
sense, or the sense of things common to human 
beings, our thoughts and feelings, and the matter of 
our lives, is the best sense we can have, and what 
helps us most in conversation. 

We do not usually talk about the sciences. How 
seldom are geology or astronomy mentioned in 
conversation. Chemistry is less discussed than 
cookery. Men do not talk much of geography or 
geometry. History and biography come nearer to 
us, and still nearer politics and commerce, literature 
and art — that is, the newest novels, and poems and 



no 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



pictures, or the songs of the season, are conversational 
topics in the best society. One must read the cur- 
rent literature, and know what is going on in the 
world ; but the best of all knowledge for conversa- 
tion is the knowledge of men, women, and life. 

And of all talents none is so useful as sympathy. 
When we feel with and for our fellows, and can enter 
into the thoughts and feelings of every one we meet, 
rejoicing in their joys, sharing in their sorrows, ready 
with comfort and help, then our conversation is a 
delight. We win all hearts by sympathy more than 
by all gifts and accomplishments. The sympathetic 
attract; the cold and heartless repel. We admire 
beauty, elegance, wit, eloquence : but we love geni- 
ality, friendliness, goodness. 

It is not necessary that these qualities should be 
expressed in words. Professions of benevolence, or 
of any virtue, are repulsive. All egotism is selfish- 
ness, and selfishness is the quality directly opposed 
to benevolence. We can show our love of virtue by 
practising it, and recognising and praising it in 
others. Our sympathy comes out in a thousand 
ways, and it is seen and felt by those who need it. 
It beams in the face of a kind-hearted man or woman, 
and reveals itself in the tones of the voice, and every 
mode of expression. Sympathy especially shows 
itself in the power of adapting ourselves to others — 
of becoming all things to all men, that we may do 
them good. 

There are some faults we must carefully avoid in 



CONVERSATION. 



Ill 



conversation ; faults of character, and faults of man- 
ner. It is not only our right, but it is our duty to 
conceal our faults. If we have bad feelings we must 
suppress the expression of them. If I am angry, 
must I vent my rage? So if I feel emotions of pride 
or vanity, am I to strengthen them by giving them 
expression in words or actions ? Certainly not. 
Every one in the company of others is on his good 
behaviour. People who snap and snarl at home are 
polite enough abroad; and the more they are under 
such restraint the better. Society civilises. The 
more we bring people together the more we improve 
their manners; manners become habits; habits mould 
hearts. 

The man who boasts becomes ridiculous. Modesty 
is a virtue highly appreciated by everybody's self- 
esteem. If I vaunt myself, my family, my property, 
my deeds, and make myself or any of my belongings 
the subject of conversation, I offend more or less all 
who listen to me. It is distasteful to the meek, and 
offensive to the haughty. It is only in droll, banter- 
ing ways that people can speak of themselves, and 
the less they do so in any way the better. A man 
may, of course, tell his own story, simply and frankly, 
without consciousness of merit or affectation of mo- 
desty. He may relate things of himself very much 
to his credit, if there is no vain glorying. 

" Of their own merits modest men are dumb." 
A man can talk best of what he knows most about, 
but there is egotism and a temptation to some sort 



112 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



of vain glory when a man speaks much of his own 
profession or employment. We must talk of what 
interests others rather than ourselves ; and in any case 
consult the tastes and enjoyments of others — the 
greatest good of the greatest number. There is a 
proverbial prohibition against " talking shop." The 
clergyman is not to wear his surplice in the draw- 
ing-room, nor the lawyer his wig. The doctor who 
has spent the morning in consultations should be 
glad to rest from patients and diseases. Society is 
for recreation ; so every one can leave his work, and 
give play to faculties which need exercise. Still, 
when questions arise in conversation it is natural to 
appeal to those who have special knowledge. 

It is best in all conversation to avoid technicalities 
not generally understood. As we modulate our voices 
so as to reach the most distant person in the group, 
so we should adapt our language to the comprehen- 
sion of the most ignorant. The skilful orator is care- 
ful not to speak over the heads of his hearers when 
he wishes to convince, and reserves any high flight 
for the corruscations of his peroration. In conversa- 
tion such displays are out of place. We talk to 
instruct and amuse; and amusement should be the 
vehicle of instruction. 

Slang. Doubtless it cannot be entirely banished; 
but it should be used very sparingly, and only the 
newest and best. Very nice slang becomes incor- 
porated into the language. Poor slang has its day, 
and is thrown aside like last year's fashions. Most 



CONVERSATION. 



slang quickly becomes vulgar. One day some clever 
or fashionable person, economical of breath, said 
<; thanks" instead of "I thank you." Many followed 
his example, but when the shop-boys began to pelt 
him with " thanks;" he returned at once to the more 
elaborate expression. There was a time when the 
most opposite things were "awfully jolly," but the 
alarming phrase went out with crinoline or chignons. 
There is a slang dictionary which it might be well to 
look over so as to see what to avoid. 

Pet phrases and hackneyed common-places of ex- 
pression destroy originality. The talk of many 
persons is entirely made up of these threadbare for- 
mularies. Many sermons are a patchwork of them; 
and we hear speeches of men of celebrity which 
consist almost entirely of conventional phrases. All 
this we should carefully avoid. Life is too short to 
spend in that way. The man who must talk twenty 
minutes when he has really nothing, or next to noth- 
ing, to say may be excused for padding out with a 
mess of verbiage. But in conversation the more we 
condense, the quicker we hit the nail on the head, 
the better. DirTuseness bores. A dozen persons are 
eager to express an opinion, or launch a witticism, 
and you pointlessly prose away for fifteen minutes. 
Only persons of very high position can be tiresome 
with impunity. 

The stage gives us models for conversation. There 
are no long speeches or stories. No dramatist dares 
make an actor speak uninterruptedly for five minutes. 

H 



ii 4 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Even the set orations in Shakespeare are delightfully- 
short and to the purpose. No audience will hear a 
long, dull story badly told. Everywhere there must 
be fire, spirit, animation, deep earnestness, or lively 
fun, something to interest or amuse, to excite our 
sympathy or provoke our mirth. A social party is 
an improvised comedy in which every actor should 
play his part as well, at least, as if he were on the 
stage with pay and plaudits. The actor, it is true, 
has his part written for him, studies it carefully and 
practices with frequent rehearsals; but in our social 
life each has his part, with all his lifetime to make it 
perfect; with constant rehearsal, and daily improve- 
ment in thought, expression, and action. Surely this 
work in earnest is better than any make-believe. 

What we need for the conversation of social life 
is a good heart, a full mind, an earnest desire to 
please, the tact and delicacy never to offend, the 
motives of a Christian, and the manners of a gentle- 
man. 

If you have read much and remember what you 
have read ; if you have travelled much, and can de- 
scribe well what you have seen and heard ; if you 
have seen much of the world, and possess a fund of 
observation and anecdote ; or if you are simply a 
clear thinker, and can easily arrange your thoughts, 
and group them into a picturesque expression, you 
have a right to a large share of the conversation of 
any circle. 

Let your words be as fit and well chosen as your 



CONVERSATION. 



115 



clothes. Avoid coarseness and vulgarity in speech, 
as you would in costume. Dress your best thoughts, 
in words and phrases of corresponding beauty. 
Plain and homely subjects do not bear finery of 
expression; but a delicate sentiment may well be 
embellished with the flowers of rhetoric. 

The first salutation may decide your fate with 
respect to the person you salute. Boldness may 
disgust, bashfulness seem a confession of mean- 
ness. People are inclined to take you at your 
own estimate or price, unless you appear to set it 
too high, when they are put on their guard not to be 
cheated. 

Let your first address, then, be firm, quiet, digni- 
fied, cordial, but not too forward; confident, but not 
presuming, and as easy, natural, and unaffected, in 
air, gesture, and language, as possible. There are 
people with whom you are acquainted and at your 
ease in two minutes. But such persons are entirely 
at ease with themselves ; entirely natural in their ex- 
pression of themselves. They are what they seem, 
and seem what they are. 

The common principles of equity or justice preside 
over conversation. All principles are universal in 
their application. We have no more right to be 
intrusive, or despotic, or overbearing, or in any way 
dishonest in our conversation, than in any other 
mode of action. We have no more right to pass off 
a counterfeit sentiment or a false opinion, than we 
have a counterfeit note or a false coin. 



Tl6 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Conversation should, therefore, first of all, be 
honest. There is a certain allowance for irony, rail- 
lery, satire, and jocularity, as there is for games, 
sports, and pastimes; but whatever purports to be 
an expression of fact, or opinion, or feeling, should 
be altogether truthful. 

Two things we must never do. We must never 
tell a falsehood, and never accuse another of telling 
one. The one is a great wrong, the other a great 
insult. A lie is in the intent to deceive, and thereby 
injure. The untruth of badinage and drollery has 
no bad motive, and neither deceives nor injures. A 
mystification is not meant to harm any one. Irony 
may be the opposite of literal truth. But real, 
essential truthfulness is the first element of social 
confidence; and we should be carefully accurate in 
all serious speech, and never accuse another of what 
we would not do ourselves. If we doubt the correct- 
ness of a statement, we must express that doubt with 
delicacy and politeness. 

Profanity is no longer admissable. Gentlemen do 
not curse and swear as they did, such gentlemen as 
there were, in the last generation. It has gone out 
with drunkenness. No subject or expression should 
ever be introduced in conversation which can shock 
a pious mind. Reverence is an element of true 
manliness. Even when we may think some belief 
absurd or some devotion superstitious, we are not to 
hurt the feelings of those who hold the belief or 
practice the devotion. We must do as we would be 



CONVERSATION. 



117 



done by in these matters, and respect all conscien- 
tious convictions. 

It has been said that the hardest thing to tolerate 
is intolerance. But intolerance is bad manners, and 
bad manners are intolerable. The rule is not to 
intrude our own beliefs or unbeliefs, and especially 
the latter, for the assertion of unbelief is an attack 
upon belief. Infidelity is negation — contradiction. 
We may excuse the earnestness of one who wishes 
us to accept his belief, but why should a man wish 
to convert us to his unbelief? In any case, a man 
of delicacy and humanity will avoid giving pain. 

Indecency of language is banished from all decent 
society. Equivocal expressions, double entendre, jests 
which mingle blushes with laughter are no longer 
tolerated. The novels that were once fashionable 
have become unreadable — the comedies that once 
drew crowded and applauding audiences are scarcely 
read in the closet; the songs and stories that once 
set the table in a roar are never heard. At the same 
time, there is less squeamishness and more freedom 
in the serious discussion of important though dis- 
agreeable subjects than formerly. The facts of our 
social condition cannot be utterly ignored, and 
earnest discussion must accompany earnest work. 
The evils of society must be known, that they may 
be remedied. They must be grappled with, or they 
cannot be removed. Such matters, however, can be 
introduced only by common consent, and in accord- 
ance with the law of supply and demand. The few 



n8 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



should not force their favourite topics upon the 
many, and the many should have some regard for 
the feelings and even the prejudices of the smallest 
minority. 

In conversation, questioning is often disagreeable 
and even offensive. Curiosity may become intrusive. 
No one likes to be cross-examined. No one likes 
prying into his private affairs. English people do 
not like to be questioned about their ages, business, 
property, or personal relations. There are pertinent 
and impertinent questions; questions which draw 
people out, and help them to talk well; but there 
are also questions which embarrass and annoy. As 
a rule, it is better to make observations and sugges- 
tions than to ask direct questions. 

To make a butt of any person in company, to 
expose him to ridicule, or turn the laughter of the 
company against him, is as much an outrage as it 
would be to pull his nose, slap his face, or box his 
ears. Ridicule is only justifiable where it is a fair 
game that two can play at; a contest of well-matched 
wits, who encounter like a couple of wrestlers 01 
fencers. 

Men of great genius and varied talent are some- 
times almost entirely lacking in conversational 
powers. Brilliant writers are often very poor talkers 
—shy, dull, silent, with no power of expression. On 
the other hand, an extreme volubility of small talk 
and common-places may accompany the utmost 
shallowness of mind. 



CONVERSATION. 



II 9 



There is a power in conversation, as in all modes 
of expression, which may be termed magnetic. 
Certain persons impress us deeply with a few simple 
words, or a quiet gesture, or a mere look. The words 
are nothing, the action is but a slight and simple 
movement, yet there is a power in them to charm, 
to thrill, to subdue us. It is the force of the spirit, 
the magnetism of a strong and penetrative or sympa- 
thetic soul. The same words from another person 
would not affect us. 

This power in an orator or an actor is quite dis- 
tinct from his subject or his words. It is his own 
power. He may be speaking on any subject; preach- 
ing any doctrine. It is believed by some that this 
mysterious power is communicated to the manu- 
scripts of certain writers, and even to their printed 
works. 

Inattention, or the appearance of inattention to a 
person speaking to you, is very bad manners. You 
should not only listen, but should seem to do so; and 
do nothing which can detract from that appearance. 
You need not continually reply, "yes," "ah!" "no," 
"you don't say," "fancy!" These exclamations 
have the benevolent intention of showing your inter- 
est in the speaker, and encouraging him to proceed, 
but they are something more than is requisite. Listen 
with a silent, thoughtful, interested or pleased atten- 
tion. Look at the person who addresses you. Look 
him clear in the eye, or at least watch the expression 
of his countenance. 



120 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



An absent-minded person has no business in com- 
pany. He had better make his body as absent as 
his mind. 

Many admirable conversationists never argue or 
dispute. They assert the facts they know or believe 
to be true; they propound such principles as they 
entertain; they give opinions or make suggestions. 
If their facts are doubted or denied, they leave them 
to be settled by observation, testimony, or compe- 
tent authority. If their principles are questioned, 
they may state the science or analogies on which 
they are based. If their opinions are criticised, they 
only ask for the same toleration they give to others. 
Their suggestions and surmises are to be taken for 
what they are worth. 

But many persons are fond of disputation. It is 
a mental exercise — an exciting game — a kind of 
cerebral gymnastics. Within the bounds of good 
breeding, and so conducted as not to give annoy- 
ance to others, these discussions may be harmless 
and even advantageous. But they can rarely be 
entered upon in general society. Men argue, not to 
be convinced that they are in the wrong — not always 
to set others right, but to display their skill, or triumph 
in a contest. Even in public discussions, where two 
or more able men are pitted against each other, and 
the partisans of each combatant assemble to hear 
them, how few are ever converted from one side to 
the other! 

In most discussions, we contend with prejudices, 



CONVERSATION. 



12 1 



bigotries, and idiosyncrasies. People born and living- 
neighbours grow up Tories and Liberals, Catholics 
and Protestants, or Unitarians and Trinitarians. 
How seldom do all the controversies continually 
going forward, in private conversations, in the pulpit, 
and by means of the press, convert a religionist, or 
even a politician, to an opposite faith ? Politeness 
is truly cosmopolitan. It does not ask where one 
was born, or what he believes, nor even what he 
does, so long as it is his own personal affair. It 
only requires that he be a gentleman ; and one true 
gentleman can do nothing to offend another. A 
bigot cannot be a gentleman, for he must obtrude 
his own prejudices, and attack those of others. A 
certain degree of tolerance for a variety of opinions, 
manners, and morals, adds to the interest of society, 
and prevents the necessity of excluding so many sub- 
jects that nothing remains to talk about. Doubtless 
the more there is of freedom and toleration, the more 
interesting must be the conversation of any circle. 

People who wish to please others pay them com- 
pliments, praise them, flatter them. Flattery is 
indiscreet, insincere, or selfish praise. Undeserved 
praise is the severest censure. Indiscreet praise 
exposes us to the jealousy of others. Insincere 
praise is lying with a benevolent or selfish motive. 
But honest, judicious praise is a matter of justice as 
well as kindness ; and it not only gives pleasure, but 
is often a real benefit. We are probably too reticent 
m this respect — too stingy of our applause. It is 



122 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



better to freely, generously, graciously commend 
whatever we find of excellence, and even all well 
meant, even if unsuccessful, efforts. What a stimu- 
lant to effort is the hearty greeting of an artist on his 
first appearance before an audience! The enthu- 
siastic applause which rewards success is very delight- 
ful. We cannot always give the same expressions of 
applause in society — but we can and ought to give 
a frank expression of our good will, pleasure, admir- 
ation, and gratitude. We want more simple hearti- 
ness in such matters, and much less of that reticence 
which seems like stupidity, indifference, envy, or 
contempt. 

The rules of politeness are never at variance with 
the principles of morality. Whatever is really im- 
polite is really immoral. We have no right to offend 
people with our manners or conversation. We have 
no right to deal with or be influenced by gossip 
about the people we meet. Their private affairs are 
none of our business. If we believe a man to be 
unfit company for us, we must not invite him, but it 
we meet him where he has been invited by others, 
we must treat him with civility. If we know a man 
or woman to be a grave offender, we cannot use that 
knowledge to injure him or her, unless it is abso- 
lutely needful for the protection of others. The 
greatest and best men in the world have been 
assailed with calumny. The purest and noblest do 
not always escape it. We cannot investigate — as a 
rule we must disregard — all slanders. Where great 



CONVERSATION. 



123 



offences become notorious, the offenders must be 
excommunicated. In all other cases we must give 
everyone the benefit of a dcubt; apply charitable 
constructions, hope for the best, and consider every 
one innocent until he is proven guilty. 

There are little blunders in conversation we do 
well to avoid. It is better not to call out the names 
of persons we address. We have no right to call 
attention to the business or profession of any person, 
or our own, or to introduce private affairs into general 
society. Few people like nicknames ; and we must 
give people their proper designations, unless they 
really wish us to do otherwise. Avoid expletives 
and exaggerations, and deal sparingly with exclama- 
tions. You cannot laugh without explaining what 
you are laughing at. You cannot whisper without 
apology. Do not speak to any person in a language 
a third party cannot understand. This does not, of 
course, apply to the case of a foreigner, whom you 
address in his own language — but even then you 
ought to interpret. Do not quote Latin or Greek in 
the presence of those who may be presumed to be 
ignorant of either. 

The rules for conversation are the same as for all 
behaviour — simplicity, modesty, a calm self-posses- 
sion, reverence for age and superiority of every kind, 
a tender respect for women, a desire to please others 
and promote their happiness, a forgetfulness of self, 
or utter absence of all selfishness, care of the absent; 
justice, benevolence, charity. 



124 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE FAMILY. 

The family is the basis or unit of society. " God 
hath set the earth in families;" families unite in 
tribes; tribes join for mutual protection, and form 
nations; but the family is the pivot on which human 
society revolves. It is the natural grouping of 
humanity, and the model of all larger associations. 
Family relations are our first, dearest, and last 
relations. Family duties are our chief duties in life? 
and in the family we find our greatest happiness. 
Other associations and duties are of a more tempo- 
rary, exceptional, or artificial character. Birth, 
marriage, life, and death are in the family. It is 
easy to see, therefore, that our behaviour in the 
family relations is the most important of all to our 
happiness. 

The English people believe that they have family 
life in its highest perfection, and that they, of all 
peoples, know most of the comforts of home. But 
some English writers of our day have discovered that 
family life exists also among our nearest Continental 
neighbours in great purity and affection, and in 
larger groupings than in England — grandparents, 
children, and grandchildren living together in large 
mansions, or clusters of dwellings, in mutual love 
and help, and forming beautiful societies. In this 
way aged parents are not deserted and left to end 



THE FAMILY. « 1 25 

their days in loneliness ; brothers and sisters are not 
separated; there are nephews and nieces as well as 
children; cousins make a wider companionship for 
the young, and various families are interwoven in a . 
network of relationship. In England, and still more 
in America, there is too much separation and isola- 
tion of families. The groups are too small. When 
the husband is engaged in his business, or taking his 
comfort at a club, his wife is pining in solitude, or 
driven to dissipation. Family life is too restricted, 
and wanting iu many of its natural advantages and 
enjoyments. 

When, these patriarchal families are broken up by 
death or inevitable separation, there is no reason 
why groups of families, drawn together by mutual 
sympathy, should not be formed. Friends might 
live together in close relationship — brothers, sisters 
cousins by adoption; enjoying the economies as well 
as the pleasures of such association. There would 
be economies of rent, service, purchase and prepar- 
ation of food, and of all the cares of housekeeping, 
by such co-operation. In a large group of persons 
some one will have a special talent for housekeeping, 
another for education, another for dress, and so on. 
The impulse of youth is tempered by the wisdom of 
age. In such a family society there springs up a 
devotion to the general good, instead of isolate sel- 
fishness, and a corporate industry which promotes 
the general welfare. Every talent finds employment. 
There is a larger scope for life — a fine emulation, an 



126 • HOW TO BEHAVE. 

orderly ambition. Women would find their sphere 
and use. 

There must be a limit to the expansion of such a 
family of families. Every social body has its natural 
proportions. The full hive must swarm. Nations 
must divide when their affairs become too cumbrous. 

The closer the relations of any society the more 
important become the manners, morals, behaviour of 
its members. " How can two walk together unless 
they be agreed." One leads and governs; the other 
follows and obeys. They may alternate — take turns 
in mastery, each guiding in what he or she knows 
best — but the principle of order is a necessity for all 
unity of life. The family must have its head with 
very despotic authority, however tenderly exercised. 
The word despot means ruler of a house. In the 
house itself the mother is usually the despot — the 
father governs in a wider sphere. The husband is 
the head of the wife; the wife is the heart of the 
husband. The supreme motive of each is the hap- 
piness of the other — and by happiness I mean here 
and always, highest or ultimate good. The husband 
lives for his wife, the father for his children, and the 
wife and mother holds corresponding relations. The 
responsibilities of parents to their children are very 
serious. Every child has a right to health, nurture, 
education, a training in some useful avocation, and 
a fair start in life; and no man has the right to beget 
a child without the reasonable prospect of perform- 
ing these paternal duties. No woman has the right 



THE FAMILY. 



127 



to marry without a reasonable prospect of provision 
for a family. 

If parents are not healthy, they cannot give health 
to their children. If they have not some means of 
gaining a livelihood, how can they give them a sup- 
port ? If they neglect their education, what can they 
look for but misfortune and disgrace ? 

We hear of the respect and gratitude which chil- 
dren owe to their parents; but parents have this to 
earn by respect for the rights of their offspring ; and 
many parents make respect and gratitude impossible. 
" Honour thy father and mother," implies reciprocal 
duties, and the duties of parents come first, and begin 
before their children are born. Good children are 
born of good fathers and mothers. They are what 
their parents make them in their birth and training. 
Parents and children stand to each other in the rela- 
tion of cause and effect. It must be in a large degree 
their own fault if parents are not honoured and loved, 
at least during the early years of their children. If 
they want order they must be orderly — if they want 
love they must be loving. 

Where husband and wife love each other, their 
children will love them. It is their inheritance, and 
the sad reverse of this is terribly true. There can be 
no worse misfortune to a child than to be born of 
parents who do not love each other. Hence, where 
there is no love there should be no marriage and no 
family. As the essence of marriage is a mutual love, 
this is also the true condition of the parental relation. 



128 HOW TO BEHAVE. 

Parents who really love their children sometimes 
put on a hard, cold manner toward them, refraining 
from all expressions of affection, as if it might inter- 
fere with their authority. But it is better to govern 
by love than by fear, and no motive is so strong as 
the desire to please those we love, and the dread of 
offending them. The quick and ready obedience of 
affection is better than any that can be compelled by 
fear of punishment. The father and mother rule 
best in the tender love of their children. The sooner 
the child becomes the trusted friend of the parent, 
the better for the happiness of both. 

But the authority of the parent is still to be exer- 
cised, if necessary, for the good of the child. Every 
child has a right to parental guidance, and, when he 
needs it, of parental control. The child who falls 
ignorantly into any evil against which a parent might 
have warned him, must blame his parent — and 
myriads of men and women suffer all their lives for 
the want of such parental warnings. A child should 
be taught whatever it needs to know. It should be 
warned against every peril to its health and life. And 
who so fit as the parent to save his child from danger? 
In this matter there is an awful neglect, and conse- 
quently an awful wreck of life. God has placed the 
bodies and souls of children in charge of their 
parents, and woe is theirs if they neglect their duty. 

Parents should see that their children have all the 
conditions of health — that their bodies are made 
clean with the daily bath that all children love — that 



THE FAMILY. 



129 



their clothing is clean, porous, comfortable — that 
they have very simple pure food at regular intervals, 
and are not excited with gross or high seasoned food, 
or pampered with dainties. No child should ever 
taste bacon, and it is better without flesh of any kind. 
It should have • no tea, coffee, chocolate, or even 
cocoa, and no beer or spirits. No child is the better 
for one of these things — it is the worse for any of 
them. The food of childhood is bread, or its equiv- 
alents, milk, fruit. The sweetest, most nutritious, 
and most healthful bread for children, and for every- 
body, is made from the whole meal of good wheat — 
unbolted wheat, as it was eaten before sieves and 
bolting cloths were invented. As the brown bread 
of the bakers is not always made of honest meal, each 
family should have a little mill of its own. Coarsely 
ground wheat made into porridge, and eaten with 
milk or syrup, is excellent food. Fruit is as healthful 
as it is delicious to the unperverted tastes of child- 
hood, whose instincts should be respected. Children 
ought never to be forced to eat what they do not 
like. The highest authority in diet is a healthy 
appetite. The more simple and natural the food of 
children the better for their health and happiness. 
With cleanliness, good food and good air, every 
child born with a good constitution must grow up to 
maturity, with the best prospects of a long and happy 
life. Give the conditions of health, before birth and 
after birth, and there is no need to dread the diseases 
of infancy. Either children will not have them at 
1 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



all, or they will be but purifying processes, free from 
pain or danger. Health is the natural condition of 
every vegetable and every animal. Disease is always 
an artificial or abnormal condition. It is the first duty 
of ever} 7 parent to give the conditions of health to his 
children • and the next to give them the education, 
training, and exercise or discipline of life that they 
require ; to restrain them from evil, and gently, affec- 
tionately, but still firmly, to guide them in the way in 
which they should go. 

The child should love and honour his parents, as 
every well-born and well-trained child must and will. 
It is a natural consequence. Father and mother are 
the authors of its being — earthly creators; so that 
God is called our Heavenly Father ; and the earthly 
father and mother are next to Him in our reverence 
and love. The mother has the closest and tenderest 
relation. It was her dear body that sheltered and 
nourished us before and after we were born; and she 
has the right to our tenderest love and devotion all 
the days of her life. Surely I need not enlarge upon 
the duty of son or daughter to the mother that bore 
them. The voice of nature is the voice of God, 
saying, " Honour thy father and mother." 

The obligations of these relations are mutual. 
Parents have imperative duties toward their children. 
They must cherish them in infancy, and guide and 
educate them in youth. No government can do a 
parent's duty to his child. He is responsible to the 
state that his child becomes a good citizen. Doing 



THE FAMILY. 



his duty, the parent has a right to love, reverence, 
obedience in youth, and comfort and support in 
age. In our strong middle life it is alike our duty 
to support the tottering steps of infancy and age. 
Happy are they who have the love of those who have 
just come into the world, and the blessing of those 
who are just leaving it. The blessing of the Father 
of all rests upon those who deserve alike the bless- 
ings of their parents and their children. 

Brothers and sisters are natural friends and allies 
in the struggle of life. It is a beautiful and blessed 
relationship. Every one feels what children of the 
same father and mother ought to be to each other — 
dearest friends, tenderest companions — loving, faith- 
ful, helpful, devoted to each other. I have a strong 
feeling that brothers and sisters should have more 
enjoyment of this relationship, and more of the 
advantage of mutual help, and the beneficial influ- 
ence they can exert upon each other. They are 
separated too early and too much. They ought to 
be more educated together, and to share each other's 
employments and amusements. Boys are hurried 
off to schools with other boys; girls shut up with 
girls. Surely nature has not intended such a separ- 
ation. The family is the model of the school and 
of society; and I believe that the more children and 
youths of both sexes are together the better for their 
character and manners, and that the result of the 
reciprocal influence of the sexes on each other is to 
make boys more manly and girls more womanly, 



132 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



than when they are kept apart. The sweetest friend, 
the most delightful mentor of a boy is an elder 
sister, and who can a girl so love and trust as a 
chivalric brother ? If it be, as every one feels, a 
great loss to have no brother or no sister, is it not a 
loss to be deprived of their society just when it is 
most needed and can be most enjoyed ? I am sure 
that the early years of thousands are marred, and of 
many blasted, by these unnatural separations — un- 
natural and needless. The education of the two 
sexes should be almost the same. They need the 
same sciences, and almost the same accomplish- 
ments. They join in the same recreations. It is 
not for the good of either that they should be separ- 
ated. Family ties are too valuable, too sacred, to be 
wantonly broken. 

And when children have grown up, and become 
men and women, I think they should not hastily 
separate from their parents and from each other. 
Very sad is the desolation of aged people whose 
children have left them alone in the world. Why 
not group together and strengthen and help each 
other? If some must emigrate, why not all go 
together, and make a larger home in another 
hemisphere? 

Marriages add to the number of children, and give 
us new brothers and sisters. Some protest against 
the doctrine — but people really marry all their 
husband's or wife's relations. I know few more 
shameful things in recent literature than the fun 



THE FAMILY. 



*33 



made of mothers-in-law. One has as much right to 
make fun of his own mother as of the mother of his 
wife. Her relations are his relations. In a certain 
sense a man may leave his father and mother and 
cleave unto his wife; but it will not be pretended 
that marriage abrogates the duties of children to 
their parents. If we make any difference, we should 
be more kind to, and considerate of, our relations by 
marriage. The church teaches that we contract a 
spiritual affinity to the blood relations of those to 
whom we are joined in marriage. The laws of 
England forbid a man to marry his deceased wife's 
sister. No one thinks of marrying a deceased hus- 
band's brother. The father and mother who have 
children married, should never be allowed to feel 
that they have lost a son or daughter, but rather 
that they have gained one; and should feel and be 
richer and happier for the event. 

The property inherited or accumulated by parents 
is for all their children. Naturally they have all an 
equal right to it. The law divides equally among 
daughters ; and sons and daughters have equal shares 
in all property but houses and lands, which go to the 
eldest son, or his eldest son. The evident intention 
of this law is, that the possession of all real property 
shall be a sort of stewardship, and that the land shall 
be kept together and held by one for the good of all. 
The eldest son, or heir of an estate, is the represen- 
tative of the family, the head of the house, the chief 
of the clan, and it is his duty to attend to the interests 



134 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



of every member. He has no right to use this pro- 
perty selfishly, nor to deprive any one of his natural 
right of inheritance. He is not only bound to keep 
the property for Ins successor, but to administer it 
for the benefit of the whole family to whom the 
estate belongs. All property of this kind really 
belongs to the State, and is held by individuals by 
various tenures for the general welfare. Great estates 
were first granted by the Sovereign to the chiefs of 
tribes, to be administered for the benefit of tenants 
and labourers, as well as for the landlord and his 
family. The eldest son or hen to an estate has 
therefore great responsibilities and duties, taking the 
place of the father of a family, the chief of a clan, 
and the administrator of a domain. What is called 
real estate is not of the nature of private or personal 
property ; but all property, being the result of human 
labour, brings duties and responsibilities to its pos- 
sessor. It is only in a limited sense our own. It 
can be taken, as taxes, for the support of the needy. 
We have no right to waste or destroy it. 

The behaviour of the different members of a family 
to each other, should correspond with the sacredness 
of their relationship to each other. Parents should 
not only be but seem tenderly affectionate to their 
children. Why conceal the love one feels in even- 
fibre of his heart. The French behave better than the 
English in this respect. It is beautiful to see French 
parents with their children, so kind and thought- 
ful, proud and caressing And they are well repaid. 



THE FAMILY. 



135 



The fondness of children for their parents must be 
respectful, and never run into presumption and dis- 
obedience. A young man should be more gallantly 
attentive, more scrupulously polite, to his mother 
and sisters than to other ladies, and never permit 
himself to treat any female relative with the familiarity 
of neglect. The family is the centre of society; and 
charity, which embraces all humanity, begins at 
home. Father, son, brother, mother, daughter, sister, 
owe supreme duties to their nearest relations. In 
adversity, in affliction, in the deepest misfortunes, 
the members of a family should be true and faithful 
to each other. One hears of strange and dreadful 
things : of men beating their wives ; of parents cruelly 
treating their children; of children ill-treating and 
neglecting to provide for their parents; of fortunes 
squandered by the rich and wages spent in drunken- 
ness among the poor ; of a daughter turned helpless 
into the streets because some scoundrel has betrayed 
her — because she has married against the wishes of 
her parents ; in some cases because she has embraced 
a religion of which they disapprove. There must 
have been somewhere cruel stepfathers and step- 
mothers; but for the honour of humanity, let us hope 
that all these unnatural perversities are rare, and that 
the great mass of our fellow-beings respect the sacred 
ties of family and home. 



136 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



CHAPTER XI. 

LOVE. 

The force with which two atoms, or two masses of 
matter, tend toward each other, is called attraction, 
or gravitation. The force with which two human 
beings are attracted to each other is called love. We 
have the love of friendship, which exists between 
persons without distinction of sex ; the love of con- 
sanguinity between parents and children, brothers 
and sisters, etc. ; the love of the neighbour, nation, 
race, humanity, philanthropy ; and there is the love 
which draws and binds a man to a woman, and a 
woman to a man in marriage, and which is the centre 
and source of all family relations. As the love of 
the sexes for each other is the means by which the 
life of the race is maintained upon the earth — by 
which humanity exists — it is the most important of 
all human relations ; and it is natural that it should 
very largely fill our thoughts, engage our feelings, 
enter into our avocations and amusements, and per- 
vade our art and literature. Much of the history and 
biography of the world, three-fourths of the poetry, 
and nine-tenths of the fiction, is occupied with this 
subject. It is the spring of industry, and the chief 
motive of all human action. It is not possible to 
exaggerate its importance. 

Through the whole domain of animate nature we 
have the same force in action. The seed of a plant is 



LOVE. 



137 



produced by a wonderful combination of pollen cell 
and germ cell, male and female elements. We can 
see them in all our common flowers, stamens and 
pistils attracted to each other by some mysterious 
impulse, to fulfil the universal law — increase and 
multiply. Animals manifest in several ways, accord- 
ing to their instincts, the same attraction of the sexes, 
and so all life is continued and increased. No sub- 
ject relating to man and the earth is so interesting 
as this of the life of the human race and of all races, 
and no subject is so much neglected. The idea has 
in some way come to people that botany, natural 
history, and the most important branches of human 
physiology, are improper sciences, and that children 
should grow up, and men and women remain, in all 
possible ignorance of the means by which they come 
into existence, and the influences which form and 
govern their bodies and minds, and produce health 
or disease, virtue or vice, happiness or misery. I 
have treated very freely and very fully on these 
matters, in such a way as I think their importance 
merits, in " Human Physiology, the Basis of Sanitary 
and Social Science," and also in " Esoteric Anthro- 
pology f here I can only speak of love, or the attrac- 
tion of the sexes, in its social aspects and relations, 
as it guides and influences the behaviour of men and 
women to each other. 

The sentiment of the love of sex shows itself very 
early in life. Boys and girls are attracted to each 
other, or shy of each other, which is only a reverse 



133 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



action of the same feeling. A boy is more tender 
and considerate of girls than of boys. He has for 
them a feeling of deference, gallantry, chivalry y he 
is tender, devoted, protective, and feels himself 
drawn to them, or to some one of them, by an unde- 
finable and irresistible charm. The boy of nine or 
ten is, in some cases, a romantic and passionate 
lover, generally of some young lady older than him- 
self, and this first love of boyhood often has an 
admirable influence upon the character. Little girls 
are perhaps even more tender and romantic, and in 
a similar fashion. These early sentiments are not 
to be ridiculed, but to be made useful. We should 
treat those who love us in this way with great ten- 
derness and consideration, and use our influence for 
their improvement and happiness. What will not 
even these young lovers do for those they love? 
The sentiment becomes modified as time goes on, 
changing into a reverent friendship which ought to 
last through life. 

Over a large part of the world love is sacrificed to 
marriage. Where marriages are arranged by parents, 
or are made for considerations of property, family, 
or politics, love is a secondary matter. It may follow 
marriage ; it generally does. Men and women must 
love, and they commonly love those who are nearest 
to them, and so fulfil the contract which they have 
made. But this is a derangement of the natural 
order of things. Love is the attraction which draws 
persons of opposite sexes to each other, and marriage 



LOVE. 



*39 



is the natural result of that attraction. This is our 
ideal of a true life, as may be seen in thousands of 
romances. To marry two persons who have no 
acquaintance with, and no attraction for each other, 
because their positions and fortunes are suitable, 
and their parents and friends think it a good match, 
may not work badly in a multitude of instances. 
The choice may be in many cases better than the 
parties would have made for themselves — there may 
not be more unhappiness in such marriages than in 
an equal number where the parties were free to 
choose ; still, every man and every woman would 
wish to have full opportunity and free choice in this 
most intimate and momentous affair of matrimony, 
feeling that it is safer and more natural to marry those 
they love, than to take the chance of loving those 
they marry. 

It must, however, be said that love, being a senti- 
ment and a passion, ought to be under the control 
of reason and conscience. It is instinctive, spring- 
ing up without our wish, prevailing against our will, 
stronger than our efforts to repress or control it ; but 
though the attraction cannot always be cast off, it 
may generally be concealed. A man of pride or 
principle does not yield to his attraction toward a 
disreputable woman. In most cases the fact that a 
person loves another, is sufficient either to paralyse 
the love we feel, or to greatly modify its character. 
The general law appears to be that if love is not 
mutual it soon dies. We do not go on loving those 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



who give us no return. As all true love tends to 
union for life, it cannot exist where such union is 
impossible. It must be fed at least by some hope 
or some imagination. As a rule, those who cannot 
marry cease to love. Whatever absolutely prevents 
marriage — whatever motive, of prudence, or pride, 
or conscience — is a bar to union, generally destroys, 
in time, the sentiment which can find its only satis- 
faction in such union. 

Happily, the greater number of persons are too 
prudent to begin to love out of the range of matri- 
monial possibilities. Young women especially, though 
they may aspire to those above them, seldom allow 
their affections to centre on those who are below 
them in social position. They have instinctive fore- 
sight of marriage and maternity. Women look for 
protection, guidance, help, support in life, and do not 
readily accept the advances of those who have not 
the character and qualities which give a reasonable 
promise of future happiness. This instinct, so 
strongly manifested among animals, tends in man 
to the improvement of the race. Men are attracted 
by beauty and amiability, women by manly vigour 
and intellectual power. The natural result is the 
progressive increase in the race of its finest and 
noblest qualities. 

As the natural result of love between the sexes is 
marriage, it is evident that no love should be per- 
mitted to exist in either sex which may not properly 
come to that consummation. We find, therefore, 



LOVE. 



141 



that passionate love is very rare between near 
relations. The tendency is to look outward, and 
strangers are proverbially more attractive than inti- 
mate acquaintances. Public opinion, religion, law, 
and an instinct underlying all, prevent the disorders 
and misfortunes that would arise from near relations 
falling in love with each other. They are bound 
together by other ties ; and even friendship is 
unfavourable to love. 

If the proper end of passionate love is marriage? 
it is evident that there should be but one such love* 
It is absurd to think of loving two or more persons 
in a society that permits us to marry but one at a 
time. As there are almost exactly as many men as 
women in the world, it is an evident injustice for 
any man to have several wives, or any woman several 
husbands. There are just enough men to give every 
woman a husband, just enough women for every man 
to have one wife and no more. Monogamy is, there- 
fore, the evident law of nature, and marriage the 
equal right of all who are fitted for that condition. 
There being but one marriage, there should be but 
one love. Marriage is indissoluble, because a man 
who divorces one woman and marries another, com- 
mits the same injustice as he does who marries two 
at the same time. He has a right only to one wife, 
the second belongs to another. Married people who 
cannot live together may separate, but they have no 
right to marry again, repeating the process as often 
as they please. It is an evident, complicated injustice. 



142 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



It is best, therefore, that every one approaching 
the age of love, should clearly understand the object 
or purpose of love ; that it is really a matter of life 
and death ; that love is, in its tendencies and conse- 
quences, the most important thing in the natural life ; 
that the welfare and happiness of many generation? 
of human beings may depend upon it; that it may 
make or mar not only two lives, but a great many 
lives; that the wise choice of a suitable object of 
love, and consequently partner in marriage, is really 
a matter of immeasurable importance. 

No man should permit himself to love a woman 
he cannot marry. If he has the misfortune to become 
enamoured of such a person, he is bound to hide the 
secret in his own heart. He has no right to encourage 
her to love him, or prevent her from loving some one 
whom she can marry. A man, being married, has 
no right to make love to any woman but his wife. A 
married woman can of course have no right to accept 
the love of any but her husband. The simple rule 
in all these cases, is for each person to put himself 
or herself in the place of the other, and do as one 
would be done by. How would you like it ? Let 
every heart honestly answer that question, and there 
would be no need of argument. If every man would 
do as he would be done by, the will of God would 
be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

When the love of a woman springs up in the heart 
of a man, he should consider first of all whether he 
has a right to cherish it. Is she one he can marry ? 



LOVE. 



Will she be a help meet for him ? Can he proudly 
take her by the hand in the face of the world, and 
say, this is the woman I choose above all others to 
be my wife ? Can he look forward to a long life in 
her company, with business, family, and society? 
Can they be one in their faith and life ? It is rather a 
serious matter. If two persons are not in a similar 
social position it is difficult, and when there are 
incompatible and decided religious convictions, it is 
still more so. A Catholic cannot marry a Protestant 
unless the latter agree that all the children shall be 
educated Catholics. How can a Trinitarian marry 
a Unitarian ? It can be only when each expects to 
convert the other to his own faith. Where there are 
insuperable obstacles to marriage, a man cannot 
honourably make love. He must conquer it as he 
can, and he has no right to let it be known to its 
object. On the other hand, if he can look forward 
to marriage, he has to consider whether he can win 
the love that seems to him the most desirable thing 
on earth. The natural way to do this is to manifest 
his preference by seeking the society of the beloved, 
and by those delicate attentions naturally prompted 
by his affection. Every woman knows instinctively 
or intuitively when she is loved, and she accepts or 
rejects in her heart. Coquetry may induce her to 
conceal her own sentiments for a time, that she may 
secretly watch and enjoy the love she has inspired? 
or she may wish to consider all that depends upon 
her choice; but an honest good girl does not keep 



144 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



her lover long in suspense. She turns to him or 
from him; or she soon shows him, perhaps, that she 
wishes to be his friend, and does not wish to be his 
wife. 

It is the custom for a man to ask the father or 
guardian of the lady of his choice for permission to 
pay his addresses ; but this is a formality. A man 
does not ask leave unless he thinks he is already 
accepted by the lady ; and she should not give such 
sign of acceptance unless she feels sure of the 
approval of her parents, or means to do without it. 
On the other hand, a man who is paying special 
attentions to a young lady is sometimes asked what 
his intentions are, by her relations, who wish to know 
whether they are honourable — that is, matrimonial. 
Rather a needless enquiry. If dishonourable, he 
deserves to be kicked out of the house. No man 
has the right to dangle about a girl, occupying her 
time, interesting her feelings, keeping away others, 
just for his amusement. No man of honour or of 
decent principle can do so. A male flirt is detest- 
able for his dishonesty and his cruelty. A man 
cannot be too careful in his behaviour to every 
woman— careful not to disgust, offend, or hurt in 
any way — but above all, careful of her affections. 
Men should be polite, kind, friendly, gallant, pro- 
tective to all women; being always frank and open 
in their motives and conduct. Deception, fraud, 
falsehood are always bad, but they are utterly bad in 
the conduct of men and women to each other in the 



LOVE. 



145 



affairs of love. So much is at stake that there should 
be entire honesty between them. An honest woman 
will not allow a man to deceive himself; and a man 
should be more careful of a woman, whose position 
is more delicate, whose reputation is more important, 
whose heart is generally more susceptible to both 
affection and suffering. Men have many resources 
in business and ambition which are denied to 
women. Even if they have, as some think, as great 
a capacity as women for the pains of disappointed 
love, they have stronger and more varied distractions. 

Long or short courtships? Circumstances in each 
case must decide this question. It would be better 
not to get in love until one is nearly ready to marry 
— but when the one being in the world who can 
satisfy us is seen, she must at all hazards be secured. 
And if two persons are joined in a mutual love, they 
can easily wait, strong in the support of such mutual 
affection. The best age for a man to marry is 
from twenty-five to thirty-five; for a woman from 
twenty to thirty. Having the needful maturity of 
age and constitution, they may marry when they 
have a reasonable prospect of a living, and of being 
able to provide for their children. No man wishes 
to ask a woman to take a position of less comfort 
than she has been accustomed to and has a right to 
expect; no woman wishes to be a burthen to the 
man she loves; and no man or woman should wish 
to become a parent without being prepared to fulfil 
all the responsibilities of the parental relation. 

K 



146 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



In all this question of the relation of the sexes — 
in love and its object and consequences, the children 
are to be considered. They are the object of love 
and the motive of marriage. In no case must the 
sacred rights of a child be violated. There must be 
marriage, because every child has a right to honour- 
able birth and full parental care. The marriage 
must be indissoluble, because no child can justly be 
deprived of either parent, and no parent justly 
separated from a child. Children are the objects of 
marriage, marriage is the object of love ; love, there- 
fore, must always be subject to the necessities and 
proprieties of the parental relation. All pure and 
high love is unselfish, seeking the good and happi- 
ness of the object beloved. In a true love, each 
seeks the other's good, and both join in devotion to 
the welfare and happiness of their children. 

Nature and religion are here at one. The laws of 
virtue, morality, purity are the same for men as 
for women. Their rights are the same, their 
duties are reciprocal. What is wrong for one is 
wrong for the other. A man has no right to require 
in his wife what he does not himself practice. 
Women may have stronger motives to virtuous 
conduct than men, but the same principles should 
govern both; and a man has no more right to have 
an immoral relation to another woman, than the 
woman he loves, or to whom he is married, has to 
have such relation to another man. The injustice 
done, the injury inflicted, the rights violated, the sin 



LOVE. 



147 



committed, are precisely the same. The law which 
says — " Thou shalt not commit adultery," makes no 
exceptions and no distinctions. The jealousy and 
sense of outrage are as strong in one sex as in the 
other. A man should be as true and loyal to his 
wife that is to be as to his wife that is ; loyal to the 
wife he has not yet loved or even seen, but whom 
he is to see and love, as he wishes the yet unknown 
mistress and wife to be true and loyal to him. This 
is the law of nature and the law of God ; and though 
passion may dispute it, no sophistry can set it aside. 

Men and women should be very frank with each 
other. When they love each other with a true un- 
selfish love, there is no benefit in concealing the fact 
from each other, or from the world. If they are to 
be married, the sooner they are engaged the better. 
They enter upon a new position in life, and should 
feel and enjoy its dignity. They are out of the lists, 
and stand no longer in the way of others. Each 
prepares for the coming event. This may be almost 
the happiest period of one's life; and one might 
almost wish to prolong this calm security of antici- 
pation. 

I might say much more of love, but is it not 
written in a thousand volumes, and in the hearts of 
millions? "The all of life is love." The author of 
Realmah says : — " The test of loving is, that being 
with the loved person all talk is needless, and that 
the silence, which is embarrassing sometimes in the 
presence of the nearest friends and the dearest 



T48 HOW TO BEHAVE. 

relations, is perfect ease, and harmony, and comfort 
in the presence of the one beloved." 



CHAPTER XII. 

MARRIAGE. 

A separate chapter on marriage may seem super- 
fluous, after what has been said in the chapters on 
love and society; but the subject is so large, and the 
right behaviour of men and women to each other in 
marriage so important, and the errors now being 
widely taught are so dangerous, that I must ask the 
attention of the reader to a few additional paragraphs. 

Marriage has been denounced as the grave of love, 
the slavery of women, legalised prostitution, and by 
many grievous epithets, for which in the evils, abuses, 
and miseries of many marriages, there has been only 
too good foundation. It is true that husbands ill 
treat their wives, and wives torment their husbands ; 
true that marriage is too often the excuse for the 
unbridled lust of which wives and children are the 
victims; but these are not the proper results of 
marriage, but of the weakness and wickedness, the 
ignorance and perversity, of man. There is no such 
disorder in the relations of the sexes in the whole 
animal creation. Man alone is immoral. 

Marriage is the necessity, not of the individual, 



MARRIAGE. 



149 



but of the race. Individuals everywhere remain 
during their whole lives in celibacy; having no voca- 
tion for marriage; having no opportunity; disap- 
pointed in not obtaining the wished for partner. For 
many centuries, hundreds of thousands of men and 
women have abstained from marriage from motives 
oi religion, solemnly dedicating their lives to the 
service of God and humanity in perpetual chastity. 
A much larger number remain unmarried from choice 
or necessity, without any such high and sustaining 
motives. In England and other countries, from 
which there is a large emigration, there is a surplus 
female population absolutely debarred from marriage. 
There is no positive obligation to marry, and for 
many there is no possibility. But men who abstain 
from marriage, merely that they may live in greater 
ease and luxury, without the cares and expenses of 
a family, fail in their social duties, and deprive an 
equal number of women of their social rights. It is 
a right of humanity that every man should have a 
wife who wants one, and every woman a husband ; 
and this, as I have shown, necessitates the mono- 
gamic marriage. The remedy for an accidental sur- 
plus of female population is female emigration, but 
this matter is to some extent self-regulating. Colo- 
nists want wives, and the more prosperous ones 
come back to fetch them. In the early days of the 
American and West India colonies, large numbers of 
women were sent out by the Government. 

Polygamy prevails over three quarters of the world, 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



and it is tolerated among two-thirds of the population 
of the British empire; but it is obviously an unna- 
tural and inequitable institution, since the man who 
has four wives must hinder three men from having 
any. The marriage of a single pair is the only just 
marriage, and the rights of children and the interests 
of society require that it should be permanent. 

Christian marriage, as denned by the Church, is 
the consent of a man and woman to become husband 
and wife. The formula is, " I take thee," on the part 
of each. The priest, minister, registrar, or magistrate, 
is the legal witness of the mutual contract ; but neither 
the ceremony in church, or the blessing of the priest, 
or his declaration, " I pronounce you man and wife. ;> 
constitutes the marriage. Even where marriage, as 
in the Catholic Church, is held to be a sacrament, 
the sacrament is not administered by the priest. It 
is equally a sacrament if witnessed by the registrar. 
Marriage is therefore the union itself, of man and 
woman, in mutual love, for the purposes for which 
such union exists — mutual help, and the propagation 
of the race. When the fact can be established as 
provided by the laws of each country, the marriage 
is considered valid, and the offspring legitimate. 

Aside from inclination or vocation, there are many 
persons who should refrain from marriage. Persons 
afflicted with hereditary disease or deformity, and 
especially with tendencies to hereditary insanity, 
should not risk the propagation of such evils. There 
is little doubt that the tendency to drunkenness is 



MARRIAGE. 



hereditary, and there can scarcely be a greater curse 
than a drunken husband or wife, father or mother. 
Scrofulous and consumptive diseases run in families. 
The prospect of a short life, of children left orphans, 
perhaps destitute, and with the inheritance of here- 
ditary disease, ought to deter many from marriage, 
much more than a mere lack of fortune. 

At twenty-five, if established in life, or with a rea- 
sonable prospect of being able to support a family, a 
young man may think of marriage. If, in the society 
he frequents, he finds some person of suitable age, 
position, and attraction; one who, compared with 
all others, satisfies his judgment, as well as inspires 
his love; one for whom he feels that he can give up 
all other attractions; the one who meets him like 
destiny in the path of life; then let him frankly and 
honourably offer her those particular regards, those 
delicate attentions, which portend the offer of the 
heart. 

And even now let him beware of any rashness or 
mistake. If he would be sure of the state of his own 
heart, he should wish to be no less sure of the real 
relation existing between him and the woman he 
would make his partner for life. In entering upon 
the indissoluble marriage of the church and the law 
that only crime or death can dissolve, great caution 
is requisite. Beware of surprising a woman who may 
be merely pleased Avith you, into an engagement she 
will feel bound to keep, however false. Beware of taking 
from benevolence or prudence what belongs to love. 



152 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Beware of the managing of matchmaking intermeddlers, 
and the importunities of relations — and especially 
beware of this, if you know yourself to be a desirable 
match in point of fortune and position. Beware of mis- 
taking for love what may be but an approving taste^ 
gratified vanity, or kindness of heart. Women are 
fatally misled by their benevolence. They yield to 
importunity, to pity, to the spirit of self-sacrifice. 
No man should ever accept a promise of marriage 
that is not given in perfect freedom and in perfect 
love. 

A disappointment in love, the refusal of a lady, 
the desertion of a swain, is often followed on either 
side by a deplorable blunder. It is to accept hastily 
the next offer; to marry rashly, in a sort of revenge, 
as it seems sometimes, but more likely in search of 
consolation for a bitter disappointment. 

Courtship is often, even though unintentionally, a 
series of deceptions. It is a period of hope and 
happiness. Both persons show their best and most 
amiable qualities, because they cannot help it. They 
are always dressed in their best — they look their 
best — they are on their best behaviour. There is a 
mutual hallucination, a haze of passion, which 
heightens every charm and conceals every defect. 
There is also a vanity which hastens the acceptance 
of an admirer, and hurries a courtship into an 
engagement. The servant maid flaunts her young 
man in the face of her fellows; the young lady is 
proud of having a beau; there is a feverish hurry to 



MARRIAGE. 



153 



secure the prize of a settlement in life. Men are 
trapped; women are snared. 

If a gentleman has made an engagement, it is not 
easy to withdraw. If he has proposed, and has been 
accepted, it is much the same as if he had challenged 
some one to fight, and the challenge was accepted. 
It remains for the challenged party to name time and 
weapons; and in case of an affair of marriage, it 
remains with a lady to name the happy day and the 
parson. But if either party becomes satisfied that it 
is a mistake, and that the marriage would therefore 
be misery for both, it is a solemn duty to withdraw, 
even if they were standing before the altar. Some- 
times a man, expected to meet his bride at church, 
suddenly takes to flight. An expectant bride has 
eloped on the morning of her marriage with another. 
The thing to do is to throw one's-self upon the 
generosity of the other party, who should think it a 
happy escape. If the other party will not release 
you, still firmly refuse, and take the consequences. 
Whatever they may be, they cannot be so bad as a 
forced marriage. 

When two persons have agreed to marry, there is 
usually some festive celebration of the event, need- 
less here to describe, because it varies in different 
localities, and is well understood by the friends of 
the parties. The "best man" tutors the happy 
bridegroom, and guides him through the trying 
ceremony. The mother, or some matronly friend of 
the bride, helps her to fix the " happy day," and 



iS4 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



gives her all the advice and instruction she needs. 
For those who regard marriage as a sacrament or 
solemn act of religion, the aid and counsel of priest 
or minister are sought and given. Roman Catholics 
go to confession, some spend several days in religious 
exercises and meditations, and they receive the holy 
sacrament of the Eucharist together at the marriage 
mass. Everything is done to give solemnity to the 
vows and act of marriage. There is no divorce, not 
even to save a kingdom. 

The marriage vows are said ; the marriage register 
signed; the irrevocable deed is done, the wedding 
breakfast eaten, its toasts drunk, its speeches made, 
the wedding presents inspected, and the old shoes 
thrown after the departing pair. In the lower ranks 
of life they go at once to the home prepared for 
them, and begin their married life. In the upper, 
they start off on a wedding tour, and spend the 
honeymoon in some favourite or fashionable resort. 

I think the fashion of the humbler couple is the 
most sensible. A month of touring, of dissipation, 
of fashionable and expensive hotels, of utter isolation 
among strangers, does not seem to me a good be- 
ginning of married life. To enter upon the order, 
comfort, and delights of home, with sympathising 
friends, and society where it is agreeable, must surely 
be better for most people. The banishment of the 
honeymoon is too hard a trial. 

Need I say how bridegroom and bride should 
behave to each other? Lovingly, of course, else 



MARRIAGE. 



155 



why are they married? The husband is full of 
tender gallantry. The wife, all blushes, smiles, and 
tears, is full of hope and happiness, affection, and 
devotion. He has no thought but to " love and 
cherish;" she none but to "love, honour, and obey." 
Henceforth it is the sole object of life in each to 
make the happiness of the other. Each has said — 
" I take thee for better, for worse, for richer, for 
poorer, in sickness and health, till death do us part." 
Each has said — " With all my worldly goods I thee 
endow." They are henceforth one heart, one body, 
with one property, one interest, one work in life. 
"No more twain, but one flesh;" the symbol of the 
union of Christ and His Church. It is a very solemn 
mystery; and it might be well for husbands and 
Wives to read over together at least once a-month 
the form of the contract into which they have entered. 

The proper end of marriage, as I have already 
shown, is the production and rearing of offspring. 
The young of the animal races are quickly able to 
take care of themselves. Some need a few weeks or 
months of maternal care — the greater number, almost 
the whole marine and insect world, have no know- 
ledge of their parents. But a human child requires 
parental care for years; and where there are several 
children their care, education, and establishment in 
life demand a lifetime, and therefore permanence in 
the marriage of their parents. 

It is for each married partner to guard the health 
and secure the happiness of the other. The body 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



of each is in the other's keeping. The husband 
cannot refuse anything to his wife, and the wife 
can seldom, and only in the interests of her offspring, 
refuse anything to her husband. Therefore there is 
so much the greater need of wisdom, prudence, and | 
unselfishness on the part of each. From the first j 
hour of possession, the husband is bound by every 
consideration of care, protection, love, and respect, 
to great delicacy, temperance, and at times entire 
continence toward his wife — first for her own sake, 
and next for the sake of his offspring. Marital , 
rights exist only at natural periods. The higher j 
demands and duties of maternity suspend them ; 
during gestation and lactation, as I have abundantly \ 
proved in portions of my scientific works specially 
devoted to these functions. 

The health of thousands of men, tens of thousands 
of women, and of children innumerable, is wrecked 
by licentiousness in marriage. True love does not 
destroy its objects; but lust in marriage, as well as 
out of it, has a multitude of victims. I speak plainly, 
though briefly here, on this subject, and advise every 
reader, male or female, to thoroughly inform himselt 
or herself, in regard to this most important subject 
in the science of life. I advise it the more urgently, 
because the world is full of errors respecting the rela- 
tions of the sexes, and their duties to each other. 
So-called reformers, and even men who call them- 
selves physicians, teach doctrines that tend to destroy 
all morality and all society. 



MARRIAGE. 



157 



Husbands and wives should live in mutual love 
and help, without waste of health or life, each con- 
sidering the greatest good and happiness of the other. 
The rule is, that authority should be with the hus- 
band; obedience, in all things lawful, "in the Lord," 
is the duty of the wife. But it is no less the duty of 
the husband never to require what the wife cannot 
and ought not to grant or do. Every service must 
be a reasonable service; every duty a reasonable 
duty; and, in the order of a true life, each should 
anticipate the proper demands of the other. If men 
and women could but carry through life the dispo- 
sitions with which they stood together at the altar ; 
if the life of marriage were but a continuance of the 
conciliations of courtship ! This is perhaps too 
much to hope for — but here is the model for be- 
haviour in marriage which every couple has in its 
beginnings. 

In the family all property is in common, and there 
should be common industry. There is no reason 
why a man should be a slave to support wife and 
children in luxurious ease. The wife should at least 
be a thorough economist of the family income, if she 
cannot add to it. Marriage settlements may give 
security for the future ; but the spirit of the marriage 
contract should never be violated. 

And from the moment the contract is made be- 
tween man and woman, there should be perfect faith 
— perfect trust in each other. No man should marry 
a woman in whose truth he cannot confide ; no woman 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



should give herself to a man whom she cannot trust 
utterly. This perfect trust in each other is expressed 
in the promise and contract of marriage. Jealousy 
is therefore the violation of plighted faith. No man 
should ever be jealous of his wife, for he should never 
allow the possibility to enter his mind that she can 
violate her solemn engagements. Jealousy is an 
accusation of bad faith, and we must be careful how 
we bring such accusations. To be jealous of another 
without cause, is one of the deepest injuries we can 
inflict. The author of Realmah says : — " If souls 
were visible there would be no jealousy, for we should 
find that the relation of any person for any other is 
so completely a relation between those two only, that ] 
there would be nothing for any third person to be 
jealous of." But if there be cause, slight or grave, 
transient or permanent, it is right that each should 
try to recall the other to a sense of duty. There are 
the interests of children, friends, society. We must 
do as we would be done by, and forgive as we would 
be forgiven. Even if love be lost, scandal may be 
avoided, and much evil be averted by kindness and 
forbearance. At the worst there is private separation 
without clamour or disgrace. Men and women bear 
and forbear for the sake of their children. The 
broken faith may never be restored, but people can 
live together or live apart in mutual charity. 

The laws afford no remedy. A man can sue the 
destroyer of his peace for damages — a sorry satis- 
faction and a great scandal — but a woman has not 



MARRIAGE. 



iS9 



even this resource. The divorce court is open to 
both, though not on equal terms — but the divorce 
court is itself a public scandal and a source of 
demoralisation, and may become in time a nuisance 
that will have to be abated. 

In a wise and true marriage all the wisdom of the 
head and all the instincts of the heart teach right 
behaviour to each other. Love, trust, help; gener- 
ous confidence and generous forbearance ; unvarying 
kindness, respect, politeness; a better manner to 
each other than either ever has to strangers — each 
seeking the other's good above all other considera- 
tions. Good men and women so living with each 
other thereby educate their children to the same 
course of life, and children both learn and inherit the 
virtues of their parents. 

By the laws of most countries the legal existence 
of the wife is merged in that of her husband. The 
wife has no separate property, can make no contract 
or will, collect no wages, nor support herself. Her 
husband is bound to pay her debts, even those she 
contracted before marriage. She cannot sue or be 
sued. The wife must follow her husband, or stay 
at his bidding ; live where he provides a home with 
no right to seek another. He owns her, and all that 
might else be hers, and has a supreme right over her 
children. 

But when two are one, the supreme authority 
must centre somewhere, and it is best, on the whole, 
that it should be in the husband. If he is fit to be 



i6o 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



a husband he will not abuse his prerogatives. Really, 
the highest wisdom and the strongest will must 
govern. As a rule, those rule who can rule and 
ought to rule. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

WORK. 

The whole animal creation lives by work. The 
search and consumption of food is for many animals 
a busy industry. A great many work at building 
their habitations, and providing for their young. The 
industry of ants, and the business of bees and beavers, 
are our oft cited examples. 

As the wants of man are greater than those of any 
other creatures, so much greater must be his indus- 
try. He must cultivate the earth for his daily bread ; 
his clothing, constantly wearing out, needs frequent 
renewal; he must have shelter from the inclemencies 
of climate; fuel to warm him and cook his food; beds, 
furniture, utensils, books, pictures, musical instru- 
ments — a thousand articles of necessity, use, or 
luxury. 

All this involves work. The land must be cleared 
of its forests, broken up, and prepared for seed; the 
crops harvested, protected, threshed, ground, and 
prepared for food; linen and cotton raised, and wool 



WORK. 



161 



sheared, silk gathered, leather tanned for clothing; 
wood and coal procured for fuel, and so on, with 
a vast amount of unceasing work, much of it weari- 
some, and some of it dangerous to health and life. 
That we may live and enjoy the comforts of civilisa- 
tion, the land must be cultivated, and covered with 
flocks and herds; men must work in mines of coal, 
iron, copper, tin; there must be farmers, gardeners, 
millers, cooks, bakers, butchers; our dwellings em- 
ploy stonecutters, brickmakers, masons, carpenters, 
plumbers, plasterers, painters, glaziers, cabinet- 
makers, upholsterers ; for our clothing we have shoe- 
makers, hatters, spinners, weavers, tailors, milliners, 
dressmakers, hosiers, glovers; our homes are full of 
the products of potters, glass workers, metal workers, 
jewellers, paper makers, bookbinders, workers in a 
hundred handicrafts, which make up the sum of 
human industry. 

The world is full of work. It is the first duty of 
man. " Work while it is called to-day/' " If a man 
will not work neither shall he eat." In a world where 
every one lives on the products of labour, it is a 
matter of simple justice that every one should do his 
share. The man who does not work lives upon the 
work of his neighbour. He gets food, clothing, 
shelter, comforts, and luxuries, for which he renders 
no equivalent. The idle man is a thief and a robber, 
shirking his share of the world's work. Somebody 
gathers his food, makes his clothes, builds his house, 
supplies his wants, and he does nothing in return. 

L 



162 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



In infancy, or old age, or sickness, we have the right 
of maintenance ; but for an able-bodied man or woman 
to live in idleness on the toil of others, is a crying i 
sin, a shameful injustice, an inhuman iniquity. Why 
should an able-bodied man be carried about on the 
back of another ? Why should any man enslave his 
fellow-man, and compel him to double toil to support 
him in idleness ? But this is precisely what people 
are doing all around us. Negro slavery is the only 
kind we have ever abolished, and of that we have 
only changed the form. 

It is not only the duty of every one to bear his 
proper share of the burthens of life, but it is his 
highest interest and happiness to do so. Labour is 
life — sloth is stagnation and death. What we call 
happiness is, in a great measure, the consciousness j 
of duty done; of having been useful to others; of 
having promoted the welfare and happiness of those 
around us. Even our sports and pastimes, however 
useless or even mischievous and cruel they may be, 
simulate labour, and require exertion. Croquet, 
cricket, billiards, are a sort of work; so is riding a j 
horse across country after a fox ; and shooting and j 
fishing involve as much muscular exertion as if they | 
were useful employments. Work is so natural and 
necessary a thing, that we invent all sorts of make- j 
believe industries, unproductive labours, and modes 
of spending our strength for naught, all the time 
living, perhaps in hurtful luxury and wasteful extrava- 
gance, upon the toil of those to whom we can render 

t 



WORK. 



163 



no equivalent, for no such equivalent is possible. 
We cannot give compensation for wasted life. For 
lives worn out in ceaseless toil to create the wealth 
we idly squander, what equivalent can we render ? 

It is a question of justice, of morality, of religion. 
Every one should see it and feel it. Every one 
should ask himself — What can I do that is best 
fitted to my capacities, and will be most useful to 
others ? How can I best perform my duty to myself, 
my family, and the society to which I belong? The 
answer is plain enough. It is to earnestly engage i n 
some useful work. It is to do with our might what 
our hands find to do. I think it would be well for 
every one, of whatever position or calling, to labour 
with his hands some hours every day, like St. Peter 
or St. Paul, working in a garden or at some handi- 
craft. It would be for the health and moral satis- 
faction of every one to earn his living. I have 
proved elsewhere that a man can live, as to his food, 
on sixpence a-day, and I believe Abernethy was 
wise when he told his dyspeptic not only to live on 
sixpence a-day, but to earn it. The man who has 
earned his living has not only the beautiful delight 
of the labour, but his conscience is at peace. He 
has borne his share of the burthen of life, done his 
part of the world's work. 

In choosing our work, we must do what we can 
do best, and what most demands the doing. There 
are men born to follow the plough. It is their proud 
and happy vocation. Some men enjoy the care of 



164 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



horses and cattle, some love to work in mines, in 
forges, or as fishermen and sailors. Strong men 
enjoy the exercise of their strength, swift men, of 
their swiftness, cunning men, of their adroitness. 
Skilful men are for skilled labour; artistic men for 
art; intellectual men for investigation, invention, 
thought, imagination. 

There is economy in the division of labour, and 
men should do the most of what they are best 
capable of doing. To put a born ploughman behind 
a counter, or employ a born artist as a cartman is 
bad economy. With freedom of choice and some 
opportunity for education, men would naturally seek 
and find suitable employments. But natural ten- 
dencies are warped by social prejudices. So long as 
idleness is considered a mark of gentility; so long as 
it is considered honest and honourable to live upon 
the labour of others ; so long as high rank is given 
to low merit or to no merit whatever; so long as 
money, however obtained and however used, gives 
social position, great numbers of men and women 
will try to avoid work, and shrink from what they 
consider menial and degrading occupations. There 
is a constant effort to rise to what is considered a 
higher, that is, a more useless, position in life, and 
to live on the labour of others. Useful work is 
despised and therefore shunned. The labourer i 
becomes an artisan, the artisan turns shopkeeper? 
the shopkeeper cheats, adulterates, puffs, speculates, 
invests, that he may retire from business, and live on 



WORK. 



the interest of his money — that is, on the labour of 
others. The producers of wealth have the ignoble 
ambition to become its distributors, and the distri- 
butors are constantly striving by dishonest gains to 
become its useless and burthensome consumers, 
because aristocracy has degenerated into idleness, 
and honour is divorced from use. 

The time is coming when all this must be reformed ; 
when men will be esteemed according as their lives 
are useful, and therefore honourable. Our present 
notions are barbaric. General education and a 
higher and truer civilisation will distribute the wealth 
and honours of society more equitably. Those who 
create wealth will be the first to enjoy its advantages 
— those who benefit mankind will stand highest in 
their esteem. It is the rule of heaven that every 
one shall be rewarded according to his works. This 
is the will of God which we pray may be done on 
earth as it is in heaven. 

Our right behaviour to our fellow-men is that we 
find our best work and do it. The work we are 
best able to do, where demand is equal, is the best 
work for us. The basis work of all society is agri- 
culture and gardening. As food is the first necessity 
of life, the supply of an abundance of healthy, nutri- 
tious and delicious food is the most important work, 
and therefore the most honourable. The culture of 
fruit was the first occupation of man, and it is still 
the most useful and the most delightful. It is* 
natural and right that men should love the land, and 



i66 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



enjoy the processes by which earth, water, air, and 
sunshine become vegetables, seeds, flowers, and 
iruits. If men should understand agriculture and 
gardening, still more should all women know how to 
cook. A certain proportion of the former may 
suffice, but there must be preparation of food in 
every family, and every mistress of a house, and 
every one who may at any time be called to take 
charge of a house, should be practically acquainted 
with cookery. 

The kinds of work next in importance are the 
making of clothing, and the building and furnishing, 
warming and ventilation of dwellings. Here are 
many kinds of useful employments, some of which 
require great skill and even genius. There was a 
time when queens span, wove, sewed, and em- 
broidered the clothing of their households ; when 
every wife made the clothing of herself and her 
husband, and every mother dressed her children ; 
and no maiden thought of being married until she 
had manufactured her own trousseau, and the linen 
for her house. These beautiful employments have 
gone, and nothing has come to take their place. The 
maiden has nothing to show her lover but useless 
" fancy work;" the most she can do for him is to 
embroider him a smoking cap or pair of slippers. 
Let us hope that we are in a transitional epoch, and 
that both men and women will soon find worthful 
work. 

In the notes to Letter XXXIV. of "Fors 



WORK. 



167 



Clavigera," Mr. Ruskin says : — " A young lady writ- 
ing to me the other day to ask me what I really 
wanted girls to do, I answered as follows : — 
" Women's work is — 

I. To please people. 
II. To feed them in dainty ways. 

III. To clothe them. 

IV. To keep them orderly. 
V. To teach them. 

" I. To please. — A woman must be a pleasant 
creature. Be sure that people like the room better 
with you in it than out of it; and take all pains to 
get the power of sympathy, and the habit of it. 

" II. Can you cook plain meats and dishes econo- 
mically and savourily? If not, make it your first 
business to learn, as you find opportunity. When 
you can, advise, and personally help, any poor woman 
within your reach who will be glad of help in that 
matter ; always avoiding impertinence or discourtesy 
of interference. Acquaint yourself with the poor, 
not as their patroness, but their friend : if then you 
can modestly recommend a little more water in the 
pot, or half an hour's more boiling, or a dainty bone 
they did not know of, you will have been useful indeed. 

" III. To clothe. — Set aside a quiet fixed portion 
of your time for making strong and pretty articles ot 
dress of the best procurable materials. You may use 
a sewing machine; but what work is to be done (in 
order that it may be entirely sound) with finger and 
thimble, is to be your especial business. 



i68 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



" First-rate material, however costly, sound work, 
and such prettiness as ingenious choice of colour and 
adaptation of simple form will admit, are to be your 
aims. Head-dress may be fantastic, if it be stout, 
clean, and consistently worn, as a M orman paysanne's 
cap. And you will be more useful in getting up, 
ironing, etc., a pretty cap for a poor girl who has not 
taste or time to do it for herself, than in making 
flannel petticoats or knitting stockings. But do both? 
and give — (don't be afraid of giving * Dorcas wasn't 
raised from the dead that modern clergymen might 
call her a fool) — the things you make, to those who 
verily need them. What sort of persons these are 
you have to find out. It is a most important part 
of your work. 

" IV. To keep them orderly, primarily clean, tidy, 
regular in habits. — Begin by keeping things in order 
soon you will be able to keep people also. 

" Early rising, on all grounds, is for yourself indis- 
pensable. You must be at work by latest at six in 
summer and seven in winter. (Of course that puts 
an end to evening parties, and so it is a blessed con- 
dition in two directions at once.) Every day do a 
little bit of housemaid's work in your own house 
thoroughly, so as to be a pattern of perfection in 
that kind. Your actual housemaid will then follow 
your lead, if there's an atom of woman's spirit in her 
— (if not, ask your mother to get another). Take a 
step or two of stair, and a corner of the dining-room, 
and keep them polished like bits of a Dutch picture. 



WORK. 



169 



" If you have a garden, spend all spare minutes 
in it in actual gardening. If not, get leave to take 
care of part of some friend's, a poor person's, but 
always out of doors. Have nothing to do with green- 
houses, still less with hothouses. 

" When there are no flowers to be looked after, 
there are dead leaves to be gathered, snow to be 
swept, or matting to be nailed, and the like. 

66 V. Teach — yourself first — to read with attention? 
and to remember with affection, what deserves both, 
and nothing else. Never read borrowed books. To 
be without books of your own is the abyss of penury. 
Don't endure it. And when youVe to buy them, 
you'll think whether they're worth reading; which 
you had better, on all accounts." 

Very good as far as it goes. Every girl should 
learn and practice chiefly what she will need to know 
and do as wife, mother, mistress of a family, and in 
the care of children, of the sick, of the poor. She 
should learn every kind of work she may have either 
to do or direct. And in the uncertainties of life 
every girl, for her own dignity and safety, and to 
preserve her from dependence or the necessity of a 
false marriage, should be able to get her living as 
worker or teacher; by some useful craft or desirable 
accomplishment. 

There is no lack of good employments for men. 
Every country needs good architects, capable of 
planning convenient, healthy, substantial, and beau- 
tiful dwellings, which are so rare, that vast numbers 



170 



HOW TO BEHAVE 



are greatly needed. Honest and capable workmen 
are wanted in every department of industry, and 
especially intelligent foremen and directors of the 
labour of others. Thousands of agricultural engineers, 
gardeners, horticulturists, and men acquainted with 
the care of poultry and bees could find employment. 
Men are needed who can increase the fertility of 
England, multiply its productions, and enhance its 
beauty. The great work of man is to subdue the 
earth, to cover it with fertility and beauty, and make 
it the home of an honest, prosperous, and happy 
society; and this can be done only by the union ot 
genius, integrity, and industry — by the best kind of 
work. 

Above all, honest work. Whether a man builds a 
house, or makes a coat, or writes a book, let it be 
done honestly, thoroughly, and as well as he can do 
it. The world is defrauded on all sides with tricks 
and shams. Theft is almost universal. Our bakers 
give us bad bread, milk is watered, groceries are adul- 
terated, wines are poisoned, our tailors sell us shoddy, 
shoes fall in pieces, roofs leak, chimneys smoke, 
houses tumble in ruins about our ears. The 
greed of gain demoralises trade and industry. The 
man who sells any article which is not genuinely 
what it purports to be, steals. The man who takes 
more for anything than its fair and equitable value, 
steals. The man who exacts more than a fair com- 
pensation for his labour, as truly steals as he who 
picks your pocket. And there is the aggravation of 



i7i 



SERVICE. 



bad faith, of deliberate and systematic deception. 
To think that a few years ago men were hanged in 
front of Newgate for stealing the value of a shilling ! 



CHAPTER XIV. 

SERVICE. 

In this world of work it is necessary to the order of 
society that some should oversee, direct, command, 
and that others should serve and obey. It is mutual 
service; for the brain serves the hands as well as 
the hands the brain. We all serve and are served. 
We have the civil service, military service, the naval 
service; Ministers of State are nominally Her 
Majesty's servants — really, the servants of the people. 
The ministers of religion, law, medicine, are public 
servants. Authors, journalists, artists, are but the 
most obedient humble servants of the community at 
large. Children are legally bound to render service 
to their parents until they are twenty-one years of 
age. Apprentices must serve their masters the 
appointed term ; workmen and domestics, their em- 
ployers. Tradesmen serve their customers. 

The condition of a peaceful and prosperous 
society is faithful service. We want it everywhere, 
from highest to lowest. Woe to the State that is not 
served by able and faithful ministers; woe to the 



172 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



family which has stupid, disorderly, wasteful, and 
treacherous domestics. What can there be but mis- 
fortune, waste, want, and misery where politicians 
are selfish, clergymen negligent, lawyers dishonest, 
physicians ignorant and mercenary, tradesmen fradu- 
lent, employers avaricious, workmen unfaithful? 
servants idle, pilfering, and disorderly? These are 
not accusations. I put the case in this way that 
every one may see the need of honest fidelity. 

We must trust each other, and we must therefore 
be worthy of trust. We must trust our legislators for 
wise government, our judges to administer the laws, 
our soldiers to defend us, our police to watch and 
guard us. Everywhere is trust, and on every side is 
the liability to be cheated and betrayed, for we are all 
bound together — all members one of another. The 
human body is the type of human society. The 
perfection of society depends upon the completeness 
of its organisation, and the capacity and fidelity of 
its members. Perfect individuals will make a perfect 
society. 

In every kind of service, whether to a master, 
captain, leader, or employer, there must be perfect 
honesty and fidelity. We have no more right to 
steal time than to steal money. Waste is theft. 
Negligence is theft. Unfaithful service is gross dis- 
honesty. We may as well rob a man as to see 
another rob him without warning him, or doing our 
best to prevent it. 

And in all service there should never be any 



SERVICE. 



173 



question of pay or wages. Does a statesman serve 
his country for the salary he receives, and dole out 
his labour in proportion to the amount? Do legisla- 
tors make laws because they are paid for it ? Do 
clergymen regulate the performance of their duties 
by the value of their livings ? Is" a lawyer zealous in 
defence of his client in proportion to his fee? Does 
a physician or surgeon, by the bedside of a patient, 
ever think of pay? Has the soldier's sixpence a-day 
anything to do with a desperate defence or a heroic 
assault on the field of battle? Do men volunteer in 
forlorn hopes with any thought of wages? Does a 
poet write, or an artist paint, or an orator speak 
according to his pay? Has the amount of salary 
anything to do with the efforts, the zeal, the enthu- 
siasm and success of the musician, the singer, the 
actor? Why should it have, then, with the house- 
maid or cook, the labourer, the artisan, the mechanic, 
the assistant in any trade? Noble and generous 
souls have no mercenary motives. They do not 
consider equivalents. They work for the work's 
sake. Conscience and honour compel them to do 
good work. What their hands find to do, they do 
with their might. 

Children must be sustained; apprentices properly 
provided for and taught ; servants made comfortable ; 
workmen equitably paid according to ,the value of 
their services, or according to their needs ; but in no 
case is the amount of payment the real right motive 
for zeal and fidelity. To be mercenary is to be 



174 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



mean — on either side. All service should be free, 
voluntary, given from love of the work and love of 
those to whom it is rendered. And all reward should 
be of the same character — service for service. All 
spontaneous service is delight. 

But this beautiful service of zeal and fidelity, this 
labour of love, must be reciprocal. Masters and 
employers must be just and generous, and as eager 
to reward service as they wish people to be to render 
it. A man who profits by the labour of others with- 
out giving fair value for it, is simply a robber. In 
every work which one person does for another there 
is a question of equity. The labourer is worthy of 
his hire. We must not muzzle the ox that treadeth 
out the corn. It is a matter of conscience with every 
master not to be indebted to any servant ; not to 
stint him of his fair reward ; to render unto every 
one according to his works; never to keep back the 
rightful share of any one in the proceeds of his 
labour. The agricultural labourer, for example, has 
a natural right to a comfortable dwelling, sufficient 
clothing, healthy food, education, recreation, and 
provision for the future; and no farmer has any right 
to profit, nor landlord to rent, until those who do 
the work have their rightful share of the products of 
their industry. It may not be possible to estimate 
to a penny what is a workman's or a servant's right- 
ful share in any industry, but intelligent men can 
make a close approximation to an equitable compen- 
sation- and no honest workman will be willing to 



SERVICE. 



175 



receive more, and no honest employer to give less. 
When two persons share an apple, each wishes to 
give the other the largest half. This is the generous 
rule in all dealings. Every servant should try to do 
more than is required, every master to pay more than 
simple justice demands. The master should say — 
"John, you are working too hard/' And John 
should say — " Master, you are giving me more than 
I deserve." 

The rule of all service, high or low, is a generous, 
unselfish zeal, and an unswerving, unfaltering fidelity, 
on the part of the servant — on the part of those to 
whom service is rendered, a generous appreciation 
and unstinting reward, or giving service in return. 
This is the Christian rule of service. Every one is 
bound to serve master or employer as he would 
serve God — with the same honest fidelity, generous 
zeal, and devotion. And the duties of masters to 
servants are of no less high moral and religious 
obligation. 

Every one can see how far service has fallen from 
this high standard. There is selfish greed and open 
war between employers and employed. It is, I 
believe, the consequence of carelessness, negligence, 
selfishness, oppression, and in many cases, inhuman 
cruelty on the part of masters and employers. There 
is a natural instinct of fidelity in men which responds 
to generous treatment. Good officers proverbially 
make good soldiers. Good masters have good 
servants. Service has been demoralised by the 



176 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



negligence or injustice of employers, until each is 
trying, not to do the best he can for the other, but 
the one to get the most work for the least wages, and 
the other to get the most wages for the least work. 
Masters combine together to keep down the price of 
labour — workmen combine to lessen the hours of 
labour and increase its price. The true way is for 
all to combine to find what is best for the interests 
of both and all classes. 

I believe that the highest condition of mutual 
service is a system of free and generous co-operation 
— ail working together for the good of all with an 
equitable division of the common wealth which is the 
result of industry. A fair and just distribution of 
this wealth would give every one an abundance of 
all the necessaries, and many of the comforts and 
even luxuries of life. And this reign of justice would 
be the reign of peace, and society would rest upon a 
solid foundation. " Honesty is the best policy." 

Need I say how masters and servants ought to 
behave in their personal intercourse with each other? 
We have the model of such conduct in patriarchal 
times, and rules for Christian masters and servants 
in the Epistles of the New Testament. A domestic 
servant is a member of the family, and to be treated 
with parental kindness and care. The servant owes 
respect, fidelity, a watchful care over the interests 
and character of the family. The old fashions in 
this matter are far better than the new. I know old 
people in England proud of having served in some 



SERVICE. 



177 



good family for twenty or thirty years. In many 
churchyards may be read, " for — years the faithful 

servant of The highest eulogy ever heard by 

man will be — " Well done, good and faithful servant." 

I have no sympathy with those who wish to abolish 
the natural relations of master and servant. They 
are necessary to family life. Whatever changes and 
improvements we make in social organisation, the 
family must be preserved, and rather increased than 
diminished. But there can be no true family life 
while domestic servants are treated as if they were 
another race of beings; and they, finding no parental 
love and care, show no true respect, feel no affection, 
and practice no fidelity; but in every way deceive, 
betray, and plunder their employers. The rule of 
service is a ready obedience, order, cleanliness, 
cheerful alacrity, prudence, honesty, fidelity. Mer- 
cenary-service, eye-service, slack, disorderly, wasteful 
and unfaithful service is the misery of domestic life ; 
but I am convinced that the fault is mainly with 
masters and mistresses. No doubt servants demoralise 
each other, but people who know how to teach, train, 
and treat their servants will have good ones. The 
relation between a good master or mistress and a 
good servant is one of mutual comfort and delight. 
The test of good service is permanence. The rule 
of behaviour is the golden rule, which applies to all 
our relations and affairs. We should treat servants 
as we would be treated in their place; we should 
serve our employers as we would wish to be served. 

M 



178 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



CHAPTER XV. 

TRADE. 

Why is trade looked upon as dishonourable, dis- 
reputable, and something which renders those 
engaged in it unfit for good society? Trade is a 
condition of civilisation. There can be no division 
of labour without exchanges. We buy and sell; 
buying is honourable, selling is base. What is the 
reason? Why should an idle, foolish, unmannerly 
cub, who never did one useful thing in his life, have 
his name in the court compartment of the Directory, 
and be received in society, while an intelligent, 
gentlemanly shopkeeper is excluded? Why is it 
proper to buy things but not proper to sell things ? 
The highest lady in the land — the first gentleman in 
Europe may buy — Why would either lose caste by 
selling ? 

The reason is that trade is dishonest, and the taint 
of its general dishonesty attaches to all who engage 
in it. A nobleman may sell his horses or cattle — 
anything produced upon his estate; but if he were 
to buy for the purpose of selling again, he would 
become a tradesman, and be degraded from his 
nobility. He is tainted with the greed of gain, and 
the suspicion of rascality. 

If trade were honest, it would never have become 
a reproach. A fair exchange of commodities is a gain 



TRADE. 



179 



to both parties, and honourable to both. The sole 
disgrace of trade is its dishonesty. Exchanges 
should be fair, just, equal. The man who takes 
more than the fair value of a thing, or gives less, 
defrauds his neighbour, and is guilty of the crime 
and sin of theft; and thieves cannot expect to be 
admitted into genteel society and have their names 
in the court side of the Directory. 

But how, it will be asked, are we to get at the fair 
value and honest price of commodities? The price of 
a thing is whatever its possessor chooses to ask for 
it, or a purchaser is willing to pay. But a seller may 
be rascal enough to ask, and a buyer foolish enough 
to pay, three times its value. 

Fancy prices are exceptional. Things that are 
rare or curious ; old books, pictures, &c, bring 
prices at public auctions far beyond any intrinsic 
worth. A single bulb of a tulip has been sold for 
a thousand pounds. Gold and gems have a conven- 
tional and exchangeable value. The buying and 
selling value of a thing is what we can readily get in 
exchange for it in the open market. A bushel of 
wheat is worth certain quantities of barley, rice, 
potatoes, sugar, &c. A coat is worth a certain 
quantity of beef or apples. We put our prices in 
gold and silver, but only as a convenient means of 
exchange. Money represents articles of use or 
luxury. In the end, the exchangeable value of 
things depends upon their cost; the cost of things is 
the amount of labour expended in their production ; 



i8o 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



and the honest price of a thing ought never to exceed 
a fair estimate of its cost. 

If I buy a horse of a farmer who has raised him 
for fifty pounds, and sell him next day for a hundred, 
I have robbed somebody of fifty pounds. If the 
horse is worth but fifty pounds, I rob the man to 
whom I sell him. If he is worth more, I have 
robbed the farmer of whom I have bought him. 
Any one can see that a gentleman cannot go about 
stealing money from people in that way; and it is 
also easy to see that people who do such things are 
not gentlemen; and because tradesmen are constantly 
and systematically doing such things they are not 
considered gentlemen, and never can be until trade 
is reformed and made honest, and men carry into all 
their business the golden rule of all right doing. 

The true principle of trade is equal exchanges. If 
one man raises an acre of wheat, and another an 
acre of potatoes, with equal labour, and the produce 
is 60 bushels of wheat and 180 bushels of potatoes, 
then each bushel of wheat may be fairly exchanged 
for three bushels of potatoes. Cost is the limit of 
price. Where cost cannot be estimated, we may 
take value. A pound of wheat may be equal in 
nutritive value to five pounds of potatoes ; but we 
give more than things are really worth as nutriment, 
to gratify our palates, and for the sake of variety. 

Of course the time or labour of those who distri- 
bute articles enters into the cost, and a pound of tea 
passes through several hands between the Chinaman 



TRADE. 



181 



who raises it and gets perhaps a penny a-pound for 
it, and the English consumer who pays three shil- 
lings. The man who raises grapes in the south of 
Spain may get sixpence for as many as will make a 
bottle of wine, which sells in England for ten shil- 
lings. The nine-and-sixpence are divided in this 
way — labour in making, transporting, and selling, 
eighteenpence; profit, eight shillings. 

All honest trade is frank, open, and above-board. 
No honest man will hesitate to tell what any article 
has cost him, and to let the purchaser know what he 
is paying him for his services in selling it. I have 
as much right to know what I give a man for selling 
me a yard of cloth, as for making a jacket. A 
tradesman has a right to a fair price for the service 
he renders me, and to no more. It is a part of the 
cost. Profit, or a price above a fair compensation 
for service rendered, is a fraud upon the purchaser; 
and as people get their eyes open to this, they will 
more and more combine together to get honest 
exchanges and throw off the burthen of paying profits 
which enrich some, and support great numbers in 
idleness. 

The rule of all trade should be to mark every 
article with its actual cost to the dealer, and then 
with the price for which he is willing to sell it. This 
would be fair to seller and buyer. The cost mark 
should be as much subject to legal investigation as 
are weights and measures. It is the right of every 
one who buys to get honest measure, honest weight; 



182 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



and it is just as much his right to get things of honest 
quality and at an honest price. 

There was once, and perhaps still is, a country in 
the heart of Europe where people left their little 
shops to keep themselves. The goods were all 
marked with their prices, and customers came and 
helped themselves to what they wanted, putting the 
pay in the till; and there was no thought that any 
one would cheat or steal. That is good behaviour. 

There is a fair and honest price for every man's 
labour, which every fair and reasonable man is willing 
to pay. We respect the man who asks this honest 
price, and we despise, and perhaps detest, the man 
who asks us more. We may bear the exaction, but 
we have no good feeling toward those who cheat and 
rob us. When trade is made honest, it will become 
honourable. 

The moral and religious principles involved in 
this matter are very important. We can have no 
true society until we have settled this question of 
trade. There can be no real social enjoyment 
between people who are preying upon each other. 
We might as well surround ourselves with pilferers 
and pickpockets as with people who take every 
occasion to cheat us. Getting the best end of a 
bargain is only a mode of theft. The Catechism 
will tell us that we are bound to make restitution for 
every wrong. It was not for nothing that Christ 
drove the traders and money changers out of the 
temple. They had made it a " den of thieves " — 



TRADE. 



183 



but there is no reason to believe they were worse 
than the drapers and grocers who sell shoddy for 
cloth, chicory or burnt sugar for coffee, and every- 
thing for the highest profit they can get of the needy 
and ignorant. 

There is a movement wide and deep in favour of 
honest dealing — at least, for protection against the 
frauds and rapacities of trade. Co-operation will 
undermine and destroy it, unless it become honest. 
The more intelligent the community becomes, the 
less will it be possible to make people endure the 
outrageous frauds and pay the enormous profits of 
unscrupulous commerce. 

How should tradesmen behave to their customers? 
Need I say respectfully? Most tradesmen are civil 
enough to those whose custom is desirable. They 
are obsequious to people of rank and fashion, but I 
have seen tradesmen who were insolent and abusive 
to their humbler customers ; and many are pertina- 
cious and annoying in their efforts to induce people 
to purchase. A shopman should be polite, but not 
obtrusive ; he should show his wares rather as if to 
give pleasure and gratify curiosity, and in friendly 
helpfulness, than to persuade people to buy what 
they do not need. He should avoid exaggeration, 
and never tell an untruth. To lie for gain is the 
meanest of all lying; and because there is a genera] 
belief that tradesmen lie, there is a feeling that a 
tradesman cannot be a gentleman. 

But a tradesman who wishes to be really honest, 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



and do as he would be done by, in trade as in every- 
thing else, must not only not lie — he must speak the 
truth. He cannot honourably withhold or conceal 
it. What would be thought of a gentleman who 
should sell a horse without telling the purchaser its 
faults? He might as well pass a bad sovereign. 
And I am sure that in this matter, as in all others, 
honesty is the best policy; and that the best thing 
any dealer could do in the long run, would be to tell 
the exact truth about every article; and if it was 
poor, or imperfect, dear, or undesirable in any way, 
to frankly say so. The true policy of every trades- 
man is to so treat all persons as to gain their confi- 
dence and respect. To do this he must be polite, 
frank, honest, unselfish, and high above all tricks 
and subterfuges, considering the interests of his 
customers quite as much as his own, and in all ways 
dealing with them fairly and equitably. 

The man who asks too much for an article 
defrauds the buyer. The man who takes less than 
he asked at first, confesses that he intended to 
defraud him. The man who trusts a doubtful cus- 
tomer should take the risk upon himself. He has 
no right to average bad debts on cash or paying 
customers, unless they agree to this system of 
mutual insurance. 

How should tradesmen behave to each other? 
Assuredly only in one way — as neighbours and 
friends. With honest dealing there would be an end 
of competition and opposition. No man has a moral 



TRADE. 



right to open a shop or set up a business which will 
injure one already engaged in it. In some countries 
the laws will not permit such opposition. And why- 
should a man go to work deliberately to take the 
bread out of the mouth of another? I cannot see 
how it differs from felony. In certain trades, the 
liquor trade, for example, the law regulates the 
number and places of dealers. Magistrates license 
only as they judge that the public needs the accom- 
modation. For a tradesman to set himself down in 
a neighbourhood with the deliberate design of get- 
ting away the business of a' worthy man already 
established, perhaps with a family dependent on him 
for support, is an atrocity beyond the usual crimes of 
highwaymen and pirates. Tradesmen should be 
honest to each other, but when they combine to 
impose exorbitant prices upon the public, they are 
simply a band of robbers, and it is not only the right 
but the duty of the public to combine against them. 

No man should engage in any business which is 
not useful to the public, or, at least, harmless. No 
man has the right to make or sell what will injure 
the health, property, or morals of the people. If it 
can be shown that any trade does more harm than 
good, no man should engage in it. Yet a large part 
of the revenues of this country are drawn, and a 
great capital engaged, and many thousands employed 
in the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits and 
tobacco, which, in the opinion of a great number of 
persons, are almost unmixed evils. It will not be 



i86 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



disputed that drunkenness is in this country a fruitful 
cause of poverty, ignorance, vice, crime, and misery. 
Drink makes drunkards. Drunkards become paupers, 
abuse and sometimes murder their wives, neglect 
their children, and are in many ways a burthen to 
society. Every tradesman should be a benefactor 
and a blessing — is not a tradesman who aids in the 
manufacture of drunkards a malefactor and a curse? 

I do not know how the publisher who makes, and 
the dealer who sells, pernicious books can be justi- 
fied in injuring society for gain. It maybe said that 
they supply a demand of the public ; but have they 
a right to supply such a demand? There are de- 
mands we have no right to satisfy. The truth is 
that they often create the demand. The bad book 
is advertised, puffed, pushed into circulation. I 
think a bookseller should no more sell or circulate 
a demoralising story than tell one. 

How can men justify the making of enormous 
fortunes by the manufacture and sale of quack medi- 
cines — that is, of preparations which cost almost 
nothing to make, and have no value as remedies, and 
are in some cases injurious. They are sold by large 
expenditures of money in the publication of stupen- 
dous falsehoods to impose upon the credulous and 
ignorant. A shilling box of pills costs a halfpenny; 
a five shilling bottle costs threepence. The rest is 
distributed among the newspapers and printers that 
advertise, the dealers that sell, and the proprietor 
who lays up a fortune gathered from the poor, and 



SPECULATION. 



who may perhaps found a hospital for their benefit. 
What can be said of the honesty of such a proceed- 
ing? Granting that there is good faith in the pre- 
tence of the efficacy of the nostrum, how can we 
justify the price at which it is supplied? 

The law of trade is honest usefulness — doing 
genuine service to the public, and asking only a just 
reward. When trade comes to this standard it will 
become honourable. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SPECULATION. 

Ought a man to speculate — that is, to run great 
risks in order to get great gains? Ought a man to 
gamble? All speculation is gambling. It is a game 
of chance, or a game of skill, or the two combined. 
We gain or lose by accident — circumstances beyond 
our knowledge or control ; or by superior knowledge 
or craftiness. In every case, our gain is dependent 
upon another's loss; our fortune is somebody's mis- 
fortune. We get what was not ours, for which we 
have rendered no equivalent. 

It may be a small matter — a pleasant excitement 
to sit round a table and risk, lose, or win a few 
shillings or pounds, playing with cards or dice. In 
England many thousand persons, of all classes, from 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



princes to beggars, make wagers on the national 
games of races — a system of gambling more wide- 
spread than exists elsewhere in the world, and one 
involving more fraud and crime than any other. The 
public gaming tables at the pleasure resorts of 
Germany have been abolished by law. There is no 
sign of such abolition of turf gambling in England, 
though there are laws against certain forms of bet- 
ting. Lotteries are abolished — art unions are 
authorised, and gambling for charity and religion 
tolerated. 

But the principle of speculation or gambling is 
everywhere. The whole credit system in trade is 
gambling, risking money on the contingencies of the 
life, health, honesty, or ability of those we trust. We 
buy property or merchandise in the hope that it will 
increase in price. We buy stocks, or public securi- 
ties, hoping that political events will raise, or we sell 
on time, on the chance that some calamity may 
depress them. Men speculate in corn or cotton, and 
sometimes combine to raise or depress prices, and so 
make fortunes. It is evident that all such specula- 
tion is simply gambling, and that it is sometimes 
robbery as well. The cards are marked — the dice 
are loaded. The man who attempts to influence 
the event on which he risks his money loads the dice 
— he might as well pick a pocket. Where all are 
doing their utmost to win, you may say it is a fair 
game. The weakest goes to the wall. It is only a 
greedy scramble, and those who win and those who 



SPECULATION. 



189 



lose are equally guilty. The essence of gambling 
and of all kinds of speculation is the desire and 
effort to get what does not belong to us, what we 
have no right to, what we have never earned, that 
for which we render no equivalent. 

Probably the least objectionable form of gambling 
is the lottery, where the risks are small, and made at 
regular periods, and the contributions of great 
numbers make up the prizes. But lotteries were 
abolished in England by Act of Parliament, because 
it was found that the system was demoralising alike 
to winners and losers. Those who lost grew more 
greedy of unearned gold — those who gained squan- 
dered their ill-gotten wealth in dissipation and vice. 

The only kind of gambling which meets with 
general favour is the assurance of property, health, 
or life. I make a wager, at long odds, that my house 
will take fire, that my ship will founder or be 
wrecked, that I shall fall ill, or be disabled by some 
accident, or that I shall die before a certain period. 
This is a lottery, in which the contributions of many 
persons compensate for the calamities of the few. 
Men sometimes set their houses on fire, or send off 
unseaworthy ships, or bribe captains to sink them, to 
get the insurance ; but the principle of mutual help 
is beneficent. What is not right is, that a large 
portion of the money contributed is swallowed up 
in wasteful management, or distributed among share- 
holders. All insurance should be done by govern- 
ment, and at bare cost to the whole body of the 



igo 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



insured — any margin of profit going to diminish 
taxation. There is no reason why numbers oi 
people should draw revenues from the misfortunes 
of their fellow-citizens. 

Ail modes of " making money " fall under the head 
of speculation or gambling. No money, or money's 
worth, is ever made but by human labour, skill, or 
genius. Making money is getting possession of it 
by chance, or fraud, or some mode of compulsion ; 
and differs in no way, as to its morality, from theft 
or robbery. It is taking it without rendering any- 
thing in return. Thus we pay large sums of money 
to people who have seized upon our rivers and make 
us buy our water. Other companies have been per- 
mitted to tax us heavily for gas, and hundreds of 
families live in luxury on what we are obliged to pay 
beyond its cost. The stores of fuel laid up in the 
bowels of the earth, so many thousands of years ago, 
have fallen into the hands of individual appropria- 
tors, who combine to exact millions from the avarice 
of the rich, and the necessities of the poor. The 
land of these islands is in the possession of a few 
families, and every atom of food contributes to their 
revenues. Its price is also enhanced by the interest 
paid every year for money squandered centuries ago 
in wars. The very highways of the country — our 
means of passage and transport — have been given up 
to private companies, who tax the public for their 
own emolument. 

Investments in public companies are generally, 



SPECULATION. 



1 9 I 



perhaps always, in the nature of speculation or 
gambling. There is the risk of loss — there is the 
hope of gain ; and for a portion of this gain, at least, 
we render no equivalent. If we buy stock in water, 
gas, mining, or railway companies, we may idly con- 
sume the money gathered from exorbitant prices. 
Every penny above an accurately just price asked 
for service rendered is stolen, and the receiver is as 
bad as the thief. Really, a stockholder in any com- 
pany which robs the people is a member of a gang 
of thieves. 

That a man should receive a fair price for the use 
of land or buildings, tools or money, which he has 
rightfully acquired, I shall not here deny. The 
government of this country pays depositors in the 
Post Office Saving's Banks two-and-a-half per cent, 
interest; it pays the holders of the public debt three 
per cent. If these are honest rates, what are we to 
think of companies that divide ten, twenty, thirty per 
cent, among their stockholders ? When a man hires 
money at three per cent, and turns round and lends 
it, as money lenders sometimes do, for five or ten 
times as much, how is one to draw the line between 
open robbery and such transactions? 

We can imagine all the land of a country in the 
hands of a single proprietor, or a great joint stock 
company, and people paying heavy rents under pain 
of starvation ; or all the coal belonging to one owner 
who could levy any tax on labour in payment for 
fuel; or a combination of speculators in corn or 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



cotton to double the prices of bread and clothing ; 
but will any one pretend that open robbery would 
not be quite as honest and humane? 

The rule of a true life is the rule of justice. As 
far as possible we should in no way participate in 
oppression or dishonest gain. There were formerly 
people in England who would not eat slave-grown 
sugar, nor wear slave-grown cotton; and it would be 
well if no one would eat, wear, or use any thing foi 
which a full and honest price had not been paid to 
the labourers who produced it. Unrequited labour 
is slavery; and this slavery of unrequited labour is 
the source of all dishonest gains. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

PROFESSIONS. 

The choice of a profession is determined by cir- 
cumstances, aptitude, talents, or vocation. Men 
who fill professions come generally from the upper 
and middle classes. They must have the means of 
acquiring a good education at least, and in most 
cases, some help in the beginning of their career. 
They should have a special liking for, and adapta- 
tion to, the work they purpose to do, the talents 
necessary for success, and in some cases a special call 
or interior attraction for their particular work. 



PROFESSIONS. 



T 93 



Every profession is a kind of service. Thus we 
speak of the military service, the naval service, the 
civil service. Professional men serve the public at 
large rather than particular individuals. The clergy- 
man serves his parish, the lawyer his clients, the 
physician his patients, yet people say : My medical 
man, my legal adviser. Soldiers serve their country. 
It is service everywhere. 

Every clergyman is supposed to have a vocation. 
In the Roman Catholic Church the clergy are trained 
from childhood, and their vocations carefully tried, 
up to the time of their ordination at the age of 
twenty-five years. Vows of celibacy mark their 
devotion to a peculiar function to which they believe 
themselves supernaturally called. In Protestant 
countries the clergy have neither the same kind of 
training for their work, nor the same separation from 
worldly motives and interests. An English clergy- 
man generally has a wife to please, children to 
educate, sons to start in life, daughters to marry. 
Church livings are a part of the property of wealthy 
families, and the church is chosen as a profession 
from worldly as well as unworldly considerations. 

Socially considered, the clerical profession is one 
of great importance. The clergy are the educators 
of the whole body of the people. They have such 
opportunities, public and private, as belong to the 
members of no other profession. It is their business 
to teach, exhort, admonish, advise, and direct. 
Every week, it may be several times a-week, they 

N 



194 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



speak to people on the most important concerns of 
life. They are welcome visitors to every household. 
They christen, catechise, marry, comfort, console. 
Young and old go to them with their troubles and 
trials, their sorrows and their sins. No men have 
such advantages or such responsibilities. 

Therefore a clergyman should be a man of men, 
" thoroughly furnished for every good word and 
work." He has but one business in life — the service 
of his fellow creatures. He is the shepherd of the 
flock, not one of which must be lost by his incom- 
petency or neglect. Especially is he the guide of the 
ignorant and the guardian of the poor, the exponent 
of justice, the exemplar of charity, the almoner of 
bounty. There is no limit to the good which an 
able, zealous, devoted clergyman may accomplish. 
He stands between God and men, between the rich 
and the poor, between the oppressor and the 
oppressed. He can say what no other man can 
say, he can do what no other can do. Every clergy- 
man has his models and examples in Christ and his 
Apostles. He has only to ask himself — what would 
they say, what would they do in my place? He has 
the record of what they taught and what they did. 
How earnest were all their words, how noble were all 
their deeds ! 

Surely, of all men, a clergyman should be tht 
nost free from selfish, worldly, mercenary consider 
ations. Only a high sense of duty, a call of God to 
be His minister, could induce any one to take upon 



ARISTOCRACY. 



195 



people of England should at once demand new 
economies and regulations for land and mines. Food, 
coal, and iron are too precious things to be handed 
over to the greed or indolence of speculators and 
proprietors. These things lie at the basis of national 
progress and happiness. 

Justice here, is the foundation of the higher civil- 
ization, the better social condition, to which we aspire 
and for which we labour. A law of compensation 
for improvements would so increase the fertility of 
England and its prosperity, as to settle at once all 
the troubles of the agricultural labourers, and greatly 
improve the condition of artizan populations. Every 
peer, and every member of the House of Commons, 
every publicist and journalist, should study this 
question of the land, and of natural wealth and its 
administration. The national legislature is the de- 
pository, guardian, and administrator of the national 
domain, and all its riches and capabilities. Property 
depends on law. Those who make can unmake. 
Just laws are the economies of a nation. As the 
people become enlightened, and suffrage is more ex- 
tended, the more urgently will there be a demand 
for wise legislation. If the hereditary aristocracy 
neglect its high functions, it will be relieved from 
them. The Church will not be disestablished, nor 
the House of Lords abolished, by any exterior force; 
but both may wither, and perish, and be swept away 
when they no longer perform the duties for which 
they were constituted. Practical people want the 



196 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



that we may conquer all our enemies in the battle of 
life. 

The profession of the Law is one of great dignity. 
Judges, barristers, solicitors, and attorneys are minis 
ters of justice, guardians of right and equity, defend 
ers against every sort of oppression and wrong- 
doing. It is the entire business of every lawyer to 
see that truth prevails and justice triumphs. He 
has to defend the innocent, and punish the guilty, 
and justice can never be a question of money. We 
have a legal profession, with all its honours and 
emoluments, in order that the poorest man shall be 
as secure of his rights as the richest. No honest 
lawyer looks at the wealth of a client, or considers 
the amount of a fee. Justice is a thing too holy for 
mercenary considerations. A clergyman might as 
well preach, as a lawyer plead, for money. 

But a lawyer, it may be said, must defend unjust 
causes and guilty men. There is no such must. 
He is bound to do what any honourable man should 
do for another from motives of justice and charity. 
You have a just claim; I will help you to gain it. 
This is an unjust demand; I will aid you in resisting 
it. The law is for the protection of rights; it is the 
embodiment of justice; the formulation of common- 
sense. Therefore a lawyer, of whatever degree, and 
every one who is the minister of the law, from the 
Lord Chancellor to the policeman, is bound to act 
according to the principles of justice and equity. 

If a cause is evidently unjust, an honest lawyer 



PROFESSIONS. 



I 9 7 



must say so to his client. If it is uncertain, he must 
help him to find out the truth. That is what he is 
for. It was never intended that men should make 
a profession of supporting injustice. The judge is 
no more obliged to impartial equity, than every 
barrister and solicitor. The lawyer who aids in- 
justice is an accomplice; he who attempts to screen 
a felon is particeps criminis. All that an honourable 
man can do is to see that the defence is fairly 
heard. 

It is needless to say how far these principles have 
been lost sight of, and how far the legal profession 
has been prostituted to the defence of fraud and 
wrong, until men are warned to avoid law as they 
would ruin ; and we are advised to try arbitration 
and conciliation. But this is precisely the intention 
of the law itself; and every court, civil and criminal, 
should be a place where every one, poor or rich, 
could go with the security of getting free and speedy 
justice. It is the first principle of law and govern- 
ment that there must be a remedy for every evil, 
a way to right every wrong. And this way should 
be made perfectly easy, safe, practical, and costless 
to the person aggrieved. The profession of the law 
exists for one sole object — that justice may be done, 
and communities live in the peaceful enjoyment of 
their rights. 

Medicine is a far more difficult profession than 
law. Its intent is simple enough, but its principles 
and modes are not so easily settled. The object of 



198 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



the land, and pays all interests and dividends on 
capital. 

Wealth, recently acquired, is the sign of talent, 
energy, greed, craftiness, perhaps of utter selfishness 
and crime. A millionaire may be a clever and suc- 
cessful gambler, whose success has impoverished 
thousands. Not much can be said of an Aristocracy 
of financiers, speculators, or of men in any kind of 
business who merely make money. The worship of 
wealth, no matter how acquired, is one of the basest 
of human infirmities. The fact that money will buy 
a church living, a seat in Parliament, admission to 
good society, an honourable matrimonial alliance, is 
a very shameful one. A purse-proud Aristocracy is 
very despicable — but those who are ready to sell 
themselves for gold are more to be despised than 
those who are ready to buy them. The pride ot 
wealth is base, the worship of wealth is contemptible. 

Honour to whom honour is due. Render unto 
Caesar the things that are Caesar's. The true Aristo- 
cracy — the best men and the best women of the 
nation — are honourable and right honourable. All 
worth, all merit, all excellence is worthy of honour 
and reward. Good men and good women on 
earth, and saints in heaven, have a just claim upon 
our reverence. It is a virtue to appreciate virtue, 
honourable to honour it. If we cannot live a true 
life, it is something to say amen to it — something to 
admire it and glorify it. We seek what we love, we 
emulate what we admire. Let us cherish then every 



PROFESSIONS. 



199 



of the clergyman to teach morals and religion. Then 
any one who became ill by his own act, or by any 
disregard of the laws of health, should be liable to 
fine or fee ; and any one who, by his bad habits of 
living, introduced any epidemic or contagious disease, 
should be severely punished. Every farmer can see 
what a man would deserve who should so treat his 
stock as to originate cattle disease ; or who should 
introduce it into any neighbourhood. If medical 
men were employed by the State, they could be 
called to account for an increased death-rate. There 
is no doubt that the mortality of the whole United 
Kingdom could be reduced to the standard of the 
healthiest districts. A death-rate of thirty in a thou- 
sand means the needless slaughter of multitudes of 
our population, which will some day be looked upon 
with the same horror as that with which we shudder 
in reading of the customs of Ashantee or Dahomey. 

Members of the medical profession have need of 
great tolerance and courtesy toward each other ; the 
more, perhaps, because there is no established system 
of orthodoxy in medical science or practice. The 
Church claims the power to settle controversies in 
matters of faith. Parliament makes laws, and the 
Courts settle rules of practice ; but there is no autho- 
rity or standard in medicine, and every practitioner is 
free to prescribe whatever he may think best for his 
patients. Allopathists, homoeopathists, hydropathists, 
and medical eclectics are on the same level of equal 
rights before the law, and people who have no know- 



200 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



ledge of medical science have to choose as they best 
can the doctors who shall attend them. Happily all 
sorts of doctors cure their patients, or their patients 
recover in about the same proportions. I am dis- 
posed to think that the man is more important than 
the medicine, and that moral influence is of more 
efficacy than drugs. Faith, hope, confidence, expec- 
tation, are energising and purifying agencies. 

If physicians owe tolerance, courtesy, and all sorts 
of friendly aid to each other, their duties to society, 
and to those who call upon them for their services, 
are also very clear. Whatever a man knows, he is 
bound to make practically useful. It can never be a 
question with a true man, or any one worthy of the 
name of a physician — how shall I be paid? One 
might as well stand by the sea and consider whether 
a drowning man could pay for being pulled out of it. 
Fancy a surgeon allowing a man to bleed to death 
because he doubted whether he could pay for taking 
up an artery. It would be murder ; and the same 
rule applies to all medical practice. A man really 
owes all the service he can render to his fellow men; 
and certain professions are called honourable, and 
those practising them are considered gentlemen, be- 
cause they are not mercenary. No clergyman, no 
barrister, no physician can take pay for the perform- 
ance of his professional duties. The service is 
spontaneously rendered — what we give is an honor- 
arium, an offering, freely bestowed. No question is 
asked — the honorarium is delicately wrapped in paper 



PROFESSIONS. 



20I 



and unobtrusively left where it may be found. The 
reason why all professional men refuse to mix up 
pecuniary matters with their work is, that money, as 
the representative of selfish greed, debases all it 
touches. Love is not bought or sold, and all true 
service should be loving service ; commanding, but 
never demanding, love and service in return. It 
should be given as promptly to the poor as to the 
rich. In religion, law, and medicine, all are equal. 
If God is no respecter of persons, neither should be 
His ministers, nor the ministers of justice and health. 

There is a social sacredness, so to speak, about 
these three professions. Clergymen, lawyers, and 
physicians are in the secrets of thousands of persons 
and families. All hear confessions, and all are bound 
by the sacred seal of the confessional. The clergy- 
man who should betray the confidence of a penitent, 
the lawyer who should reveal the secrets of a client, 
or the doctor those of a patient, would be considered 
infamous. They are privileged communications. 
Neither can be compelled, even on the witness stand, 
to give them up. Such relations are high above all 
considerations of pounds, shillings, and pence. 

And all professions have more or less of this noble, 
unselfish and unpecuniary character. No man goes 
into the military or naval service for his pay. He 
gives his time, his talents, his life, if need be, to 
serve his country. Therefore an officer is a gentle- 
man, and every soldier ought to be a gentleman 
also. The treatment of private soldiers in England 



202 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



is infamous, perhaps because, owing to the system of 
enlistment, the character of too many of the men 
has been infamous also. If the government had a 
standard of character for the military service, as well 
as one for height and physical efficiency, the uniform 
would be a badge of honour instead of one of in- 
feriority and disgrace. It is a disgrace to England 
that a private soldier or non-commissioned officer, 
with good conduct stripes upon his arm and heroic 
medals on his breast, is refused admission to some 
of the most popular places of amusement. The 
French, German, or American soldier can go every- 
where, and in some cases has special privileges. 

Architecture, civil engineering, painting, sculpture, 
music, and the drama are professions daily rising 
into higher honour and esteem. Architects, artists, 
and musicians have had the honours of knighthood. 
I do not remember that any actor has been knighted, 
but there is no reason why a Garrick or a Kemble, a 
Kean or a Macready should not be. There are few 
who would refuse any honour to Will. Shakespeare 
or Ben. Johnson. And why should not similar 
honours be given to a Mrs. Siddons, a Miss O'Neil, 
a Patti, or a Nillson? 

I have left the professions of education and litera- 
ture to the last ; but they are not the least useful and 
honourable. The professors of universities and 
masters of English high schools are highly honoured 
— but the teachers of the common and primary 
schools of the country are not treated with the 



PROFESSIONS. 



203 



consideration that their functions merit. The 
schoolmaster should take rank close beside the 
clergyman. Parents should treat him with respect 
as one to whom they have delegated their authority 
and duties. Teachers and governesses are not 
upper servants. Their functions are not mechanical 
or mercenary. They are intellectual, moral, and 
affectional. They cannot be paid for in money; 
they demand unpurchaseable qualities of head 
and heart — qualities that should be esteemed and 
honoured. When a parent confides a child to the 
care and culture of tutor, governess, or teacher, he 
should show for either of them the respect and 
consideration which ought to be impressed upon the 
pupil; and no child should ever be entrusted to the 
care of any one not worthy of such respect. 

Authors are the educators of the race. Some 
poets, historians, essayists have been the delight 
of a hundred generations. A man of genius influ- 
ences the thoughts and lives of hundreds of millions 
of men. What do we not owe of honour and 
gratitude, and such reward as we can give, to those 
whose writings have made us wiser and happier! 
The rule of all professional life holds here with a 
force in proportion to the importance of the work. 
If the clergyman is bound to teach no error in 
doctrine or morals ; if the lawyer is bound to aid in 
no injustice; if the first rule of medicine is to do no 
harm ; the author is equally obliged to never violate 
the principles of pure taste and sound morality. 



204 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Better raise good wheat than write a bad book. 
Better get one's living as a tinker, than corrupt the 
morals and lower the tone of society by a vicious 
literature. 

Journalism is a distinct and very important 
profession, of so recent a date, however, that its 
position is scarcely denned. But the province and 
duties of a journalist are evident enough. It is to 
publish the truth from good motives and for justifiable 
ends. It is to enlighten and educate the public in 
what most concerns its welfare. The journalist 
should be unselfish, unprejudiced, liberal, wise, 
generous, and philanthropic. He should be a 
gentleman in all his tastes and feelings; humane, 
courteous, just, chivalric; scorning a mean action, 
prompt to recognise a good one; the prudent censor 
of vice, the unhesitating denouncer of corruption. 
Every kind of merit he should eagerly praise, and 
educate the public taste, and improve art and 
literature, by generous and impartial criticism. How 
pure and true, how just and honourable, how free 
from every taint of selfishness or vanity, greed for 
glory or greed for gain, should be the man who 
conducts a public journal which may have its thou- 
sands or its hundreds of thousands of daily readers ! 
In no profession is honesty, integrity, the highest 
kinds of practical wisdom and virtue more needed. 
The bad clergyman may have no influence beyond 
his parish; the mischief making lawyer works in a 
narrow sphere; the incompetent physician may 



ARISTOCRACY. 



205 



shorten the lives of a few patients. But an un- 
principled journalist is a national calamity. He may 
demoralise society, overturn a government, foment 
insurrections, and be the cause of incalculable evils,, 
crimes, and miseries. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

ARISTOCRACY. 

Every couutry has its Aristocracy — its best people, 
who always ought to govern the rest. Where there 
is universal suffrage, they influence and control that 
mode of expressing public opinion. Forms of 
government are therefore of little importance. The 
wisdom and strength of a nation are its real govern- 
ment, however it be administered. 

In the nature of things, an Aristocracy is heredi- 
tary. Certain qualities of force, genius, power to 
order and command, descend from father to son. 
Beauty, grace, wisdom, and goodness also distinguish 
families through many generations. We have these 
distinctions of blood and breeding as notable in men 
and women as in dogs and horses. Education and 
culture may bring us all to higher standards, but 
the differences will remain. There is no probability 
of uniformity, nor is it desirable. It would be a 
terrible monotony. When every man has the best 



206 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



development of which he is capable, there will still 
be a wide scale of diversities and gradations. 

The desire for success in life, for distinction, 
esteem, approbation, honour, and fame is entirely 
natural, and a condition of progress. It is right 
that every one should strive to better himself, and 
improve his condition — right that parents should try 
to raise their children to a higher level than their 
own — provided that this can be done without in- 
justice, and that it involves no depression of others. 
If every man were to leave his land more fertile and 
beautiful than he found it, his dwelling more elegant 
and commodious, his children better educated than 
himself, and all about him more prosperous and happy 
for his life and work, there would be true progress. 

There is no gain in hoarding wealth; no gain in 
acquiring land; but the man who can double the 
productiveness of his land is a general benefactor. 
He increases the wealth of the country as well as 
his own. He draws it from the inexhaustible sup- 
plies of air and sunshine. The improvement of the 
soil of a country is one of the highest duties of its 
inhabitants, and every acre of land should be so 
held that it can do its utmost for human happiness. 
The import of vast quantities of food from other 
countries is a disgrace to this. The land is here 
that might produce it, the labour is here waiting to 
be employed. The means of enriching the earth 
are washed into the seas. Farmers will not improve 
their land because they have no security. 



ARISTOCRACY. 



207 



And what, the reader may ask, has all this to do 
with behaviour? Everything. The good behaviour 
of the aristocracy that must always govern, is to 
govern wisely and well ; and the land of every 
country must be the first care of its rulers. The 
land is the nation's heritage — its means of life. 
Every man born into the world has a natural right 
in the land, on which he must live, or by whose pro- 
ductions he must be fed, as much as to the air he 
must breathe. The earth belongs to man as well as 
the atmosphere, the blue sky and sunshine, clouds, 
moon, and stars. The land and the utmost of its 
productiveness, and the treasures it conceals, are the 
common property of men, of which no man can be 
justly deprived. The laws of England concede the 
minimum of this universal right, in the Poor Law, 
which guarantees food, clothing, and shelter to all. 
It is the duty of legislators to secure to all men the 
maximum of this right by so regulating the possession 
and use of land as to ensure its highest productive- 
ness, and the just distribution of all its wealth. The 
people of England should at once demand new 
economies and regulations for land and mines. Food, 
coal, and iron are too precious things to be handed 
over to the greed or indolence of speculators and 
proprietors. These things lie at the basis of national 
progress and happiness. 

Justice here, is the foundation of the higher civil- 
ization, the better social condition, to which we aspire 
and for which we labour. A law of compensation 



208 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



for improvements would so increase the fertility of 
England and its prosperity, as to settle at once all 
the troubles of the agricultural labourers, and greatly 
improve the condition of artizan populations. Every 
peer, and every member of the House of Commons, 
every publicist and journalist, should study this 
question of the land, and of natural wealth and its 
administration. The national legislature is the de- 
pository, guardian, and administrator of the national 
domain, and all its riches and capabilities. Property 
depends on law. Those who make can unmake. 
Just laws are the economies of a nation. As the 
people become enlightened, and suffrage is more ex- 
tended, the more urgently will there be a demand 
for wise legislation. If the hereditary aristocracy 
neglect its high functions, it will be relieved from 
them. The Church will not be disestablished, nor 
the House of Lords abolished, by any exterior force; 
but both may wither, and perish, and be swept away 
when they no longer perform the duties for which 
they were constituted. Practical people want the 
worth of their money. They count the cost of things, 
and dispense with the useless, and cast away the 
pernicious. A nobleman who sees what he is for, 
and tries to do his duty in that station in life to 
which he is called, will be a noble man always. 
True leaders of men are too precious to be thrown 
aside. We want them — every one. Devotion to a 
genuine aristocracy is one of the strongest instincts 
of humanity. We look about for leaders, we put 



ARISTOCRACY. 



209 



up with poor ones for the lack of better ; but 
our leaders must lead. There is no lack of hero- 
worship, and no danger, but from lack of heroes to 
worship. 

Since we must have an Aristocracy, let it be of 
the best. Genius makes its own way and rules in its 
own fashion. We all recognise and bow down to it. 
We read its poems and novels; we delight in its 
works of art; we glory in its achievements. This 
Aristocracy is beyond all law, and its rank is in the 
hearts of men. Genius moulds opinion and gives it 
power. It makes the songs of all people; and those 
who sing them make the laws. Genius is the power 
to perceive Truth and create Beauty. It governs in 
its own right. 

The Aristocracy of talent or practical aptitude is a 
larger body, and the supply is more constant. It 
reigns in all the professions, governs business, orga- 
nises politics and philanthropy, and takes an active, 
leading part in all the affairs of life. Its faults are 
short-sighted selfishness and proneness to routine. 
It runs in ruts and follows precedents; while genius 
makes them and disregards them. 

What we call the Aristocracy of wealth is a mis- 
nomer. No one pretends that rich men are the best 
men; but wealth is power, and an indication of 
talent or force of character in those who have gained 
it. Wealth is the accumulation of the results of 
labour in the hands of those who have been able to 

gather and keep it. It is a congestion. In a true 

o 



210 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



social state there would be a free and equable circu- 
lation of all the goods of life — the bountiful nourish- 
ment of every part. In the actual condition of 
society some are gorged and some are starved. It 
is an unnatural, diseased, morbid condition. In the 
nature of things, all great gatherings of wealth in the 
hands of individuals must have begun in spoliation. 
They are essentially unjust. In these islands the 
lands have been seized by invaders, and parcelled 
out among their followers. Later they have been 
confiscated for religious or political reasons, and 
similarly distributed. Honest men, useful men, 
genuine noblemen, may now be the innocent pos- 
sessors of this wealth — but they have inherited with 
it the grave — the terrible responsibility of using it 
for the benefit of the heirs of those from whom it 
was taken, or those to whom it now justly belongs. 
All this wealth, all the culture it has given, all the 
power and prestige which belongs to its possession, 
must be used for the good of the people whose 
labour now, from year to year, gives all value to 
the land, and pays all interests and dividends on 
capital. 

Wealth, recently acquired, is the sign of talent, 
energy, greed, craftiness, perhaps of utter selfishness 
and crime. A millionaire may be a clever and suc- 
cessful gambler, whose success has impoverished 
thousands. Not much can be said of an Aristocracy 
of financiers, speculators, or of men in any kind of 
business who merely make money. The worship of 



ARISTOCRACY. 



211 



wealth, no matter how acquired, is one of the basest 
of human infirmities. The fact that money will buy 
a church living, a seat in Parliament, admission to 
good society, an honourable matrimonial alliance, is 
a very shameful one. A purse-proud Aristocracy is 
very despicable — but those who are ready to sell 
themselves for gold are more to be despised than 
those who are ready to buy them. The pride of 
wealth is base, the worship of wealth is contemptible. 

Honour to whom honour is due. Render unto 
Caesar the things that are Caesar's. The true Aristo- 
cracy — the best men and the best women of the 
nation — are honourable and right honourable. All 
worth, all merit, all excellence is worthy of honour 
and reward. Good men and good women on 
earth, and saints in heaven, have a just claim upon 
our reverence. It is a virtue to appreciate virtue, 
honourable to honour it. If we cannot live a true 
life, it is something to say amen to it — something to 
admire it and glorify it. We seek what we love, we 
emulate what we admire. Let us cherish then every 
atom of genuine aristocracy, of real excellence, we 
have among us, and every sign, and fragment, and 
relic of it. Pseans to the immortal living and the 
immortal dead. 

The true aristocrat is an honest man — the 
noblest work of God ; a good man, full of kindness 
and charity; a just man, rendering unto every one 
according to his works ; a benevolent man, seeking 
the good of all around him; a generous man, bestow- 



212 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



ing bounties with a liberal hand ; a brave man, ready 
to defend the weak, and rescue the oppressed; a 
noble man, scorning everything selfish, and sordid, 
and base ; a heroic man, fit to take the lead in every 
great enterprise, and give fortune and life itself 
in the service of humanity. The higher we can 
place such men, and the more power we entrust to 
them, the better for all of us. We want such men 
to lead us onward and upward, and inspire us with 
their own purity and devotion. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

RELIGION. 1 

All good behaviour is based upon religion, or the 
relation which exists between God and man, and 
between each man and his fellow-creatures. True 
religion is therefore the perfection of manners and 
morals. 

Essentially, religion is the love of God; but the 
manifestation of that love is in the love of our 
neighbour, and the performance of all our social 
duties. The practical side of religion is morality. 
Faith is the spring of good works ; good works are 
the manifestation of faith. 

To quarrel about religion is irreligious — a viola- 
tion of that charity which is its essence and supreme 
grace. 



RELIGION. 



213 



Every form of religion has something of truth and 
goodness. Any religion is better than none. It is 
an aspiration to a higher and purer life — a recogni- 
tion, however imperfect, of the relations of men to 
each other, and to the Father of All. 

There being only one God, there can be but one 
true religion. All men have the same relation to 
God, and the same duties to their fellow-men. 

Differences in religion come of ignorance and 
pride or self-will. The ignorant need to be in- 
structed by the wise; but the selfish are essentially 
irreligious and wicked. They have not the dis- 
position or will to be right. They pervert the faith, 
as they would the multiplication table, to gratify 
selfishness, pride, vain glory, injustice, inequity, 
un-r^/-eousness. Those who love the truth come 
to it sooner or later. Unselfish good-will leads 
straight on to all truth and all goodness. 

Of many ways, there must be a straightest and 
best way; of many forms, the highest and purest 
form; and it is that we have to seek. If two modes 
of religion differ, one must be better than the other. 
We need the best. If two sects teach opposite 
doctrines, both may be wrong, but one must be. 
Of twenty or a hundred varying creeds, only one 
can possibly be right. 

Religious differences are deplorable difficulties in 
politics, in education, in society. How can two 
walk together unless they be agreed? Variations in 
religious faith separate wives from husbands, child- 



214 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



ren from parents ; prevent or destroy friendships ; 
divide society into repellent castes and hostile 
camps; and hinder all united and harmonious 
action. 

Mahomed founded his great, strange empire on 
compulsory conformity. For ages Christians con- 
sidered heresy a crime against the State, to be 
punished, repressed, and stamped out. Dungeon 
and sword, torture, gibbet and stake, cold steel and 
hot fire, have been used in this country, as in others, 
by Catholics against Protestants, by Protestants 
against Catholics, as each had the political power. 
The State strove to keep its unity, as an army does 
to maintain its discipline. Political animosities 
were intensified by religious zeal; but religion had 
small part in these barbarous persecutions. It was 
the love of power, and not the love of God, that 
prompted the burning of heretics in Spain, the 
atrocities of Catholics and Hugnenots in France, 
and the persecutions under Henry VIII., Edward 
VI. , Mary, Elizabeth, and Cromwell. Religion has 
been a pretext and excuse for acts of human pride, 
selfishness, and cruelty. All fanaticism has the 
elements of pride and self-will, and the lack of the 
very core and essence of religion — Charity. 

The Bible exhorts, entreats, commands the most 
perfect unity of faith, and the most perfect charity of 
feeling. There can of course be but one Church, 
the mystical body of Christ, and pillar and ground 
of truth. There can be but one faith, which all 



RELIGION. 



215 



were exhorted to hold in perfect unity. Christ 
could not have taught two inconsistent and opposing 
doctrines, nor founded two churches opposed to 
each other. The unity of church and faith are 
logical necessities ; and such unity seems to be 
absolutely necessary to all true political and social 
organisation — to all right progress and real prosperity 
and happiness. 

It seems to me that every unprejudiced person 
must see that if there is any true religion, there can 
be but one; if there is any Church, only one is 
possible ; and that the unity of Christendom is the 
condition of its power and progress. 

What then is our duty? Evidently to be patient 
and charitable toward all from whom we differ, and 
earnestly seek to know and to do the right. The 
way to unity is for all to approach some common 
standard. Things which are equal to the same 
thing are equal to each other. Those who love the 
same things love each other. The higher the love 
the higher the unity it inspires. When men perfectly 
love God they will perfectly love one another. 

If men could lay aside all prejudices, all opinions 
of others, and, in the simple love of truth, read the 
gospels and epistles of the New Testament, as one 
might read them for the first time, with no kind of 
prepossessions, I believe they would see their way 
more clearly than they can in the mists of the 
necessary errors of conflicting sects. But a red 
light makes all things red ; a blue light colours the 



2l6 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



whole landscape blue. No man can see the truth 
who first puts on spectacles of error. 

The essential thing is purity of intention ; a wish 
and a will to be right and to do right — to deal 
justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly before God. 
This is the highest manhood and the true religion. 

In religion, each point of belief includes all others. 
The first section of the Apostle's creed — " I believe 
in God the Father Almighty," holds all the rest; as 
does the "Our Father who art in Heaven" contain 
all the petitions which follow. So "Love is the 
fulfilling of the law." The truths of religion are self- 
evident, its mysteries inconceivable: we are com- 
pelled to believe the truths, and these require our 
assent to mysteries which do not contradict, but 
transcend our reason. No truth is unreasonable, 
but many facts in nature, even, are utterly incompre- 
hensible. We understand nothing of the forces of 
cohesion, repulsion, gravitation. We observe phe- 
nomena, but all causes are mysteries. They exist 
and act notwithstanding, and we believe in them, 
though we cannot comprehend them. We really 
know no more of what we call the natural, than we 
do of what we call the supernatural; but we believe 
in both. The adaptations of man to the super- 
natural — to the facts of God and Immortality — are 
as evident to our minds as are our adaptations to 
the world around us. Take God and Immortality 
from man, and what we have left is so little, and so 
little worth, that life can scarcely be said to have 



MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS. 2J7 

motives, objects, or value. Thus religion is the 
basis of virtue — the crown and glory of manhood. 



CHAPTER XX. 

MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS. 

It may be thought that I have dealt too much with 
the principles of behaviour, and too little with rules 
of practice. But principles come into acts. Being 
manifests itself in doing. Love and hate, and all 
passions, emotions, sentiments, and thoughts find 
their natural expression. 

The Bible is full of maxims of morals and con- 
duct, and examples of the highest dignity and virtue. 
There is no better manual of politeness. We cannot 
imagine our highest models of the Christian life as 
other than perfect gentlemen and ladies — as persons 
whom we may well imitate in the smallest items of 
conduct. 

The highest grace is charity. Charity is love to 
God and man. Whatever violates that love is con- 
trary to religion and morals. To love nature is to 
love the Author of nature. We love and serve God 
in his humanity. 

The motive is the essential thing in all our con- 
duct. God takes the will for the deed. With Him 
what we wish to do, what we try to do, is done. 



2l8 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



The true order of life is first use, then beauty; 
but use and beauty are never far apart. The most 
useful things in nature are the most beautiful. The 
finest forms of men and animals for strength and 
agility are the most elegant and graceful. 

We should so order our lives as to make the most 
of them, wasting no time, no strength, no thought. 
Needs are pressing, and life is short. We must 
economise time by order, and force by doing the 
best work. 

Never hurry. Whatever is worth doing at all, is 
worth doing well. Plan everything, and work to the 
plan. Carry conscience into every act of life. In 
eating a meal, consider what is best for you, and 
how much; and do not vary in one or the other. 
Learn what is meant by the maxim : " Whether ye 
eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory 
of God." The glory of God is inseparable from, and 
solely known to us in, the highest good of His 
creatures. 

Learn to tolerate criticism, and profit by it. We 
should no more resent another's opinion of our con- 
duct than our own. We are never to needlessly im- 
pute bad motives to the censures of others. Whether 
censure is intended for our good or not, we should 
disarm the critic by our thanks, and turn the criti- 
cism to good account. An artist shows his picture, 
and invites people to point out its faults; which, if 
he can see, he can mend. We should calmly do the 
same as to all our conduct. He who can bear to be 



MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS. 



219 



told of his faults, that he may mend them, is well on 
the way to the highest excellence. 

Anger dwells in the bosom of fools. There is a 
ust or righteous indignation ; but its expression must 
be self-possessed, calm, charitable. Whatever the 
provocation we receive, we must rule our own 
spirits, and not give place to wrath — not be beside 
ourselves. Whatever we may owe to others, we owe 
this to ourselves. An angry man is a lunatic. All 
violence of temper is of the nature of insanity. We 
must gain and keep self-control, as the first condition 
of right conduct. 

Silence is sometimes golden. Better silence than 
senseless gabble. Better silence than replies that 
irritate and wound. People who would never de- 
scend to the vulgarity of a blow are peevish, nagging, 
sarcastic, rude, insolent, abusive in speech. Their 
words wound like blows, or pierce like sharp spears. 
Words vex, annoy, irritate, poison, and sometimes kill. 
Men who are taken before the magistrates for wife- 
beating are not the worst of brutes. " A soft answer 
turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up 
anger.'' 

The maxim of a gentleman is " suaviter in modo: 
fortiler in re" He should be as gentle, sauve, cour- 
teous in manner, as he is firm and energetic in all 
right actions. He must do his duty; but he need 
not jostle against or run over people in doing it. 
Roughness, brusqueness, incivility, are no part of 
duty-doing. If a man is obliged even to take the 



220 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



life of another, in the disharge of his duty, he 
should do it with perfect kindness and courtesy. 

Resolutely do the right — the highest and best 
right — and habit will make it easy, and custom and 
conscience will make it delightful. 

Habit governs mind and morals as well as nerves 
and muscles. We form habits of truth and honesty, 
of benevolence and religion. All kinds of good 
behaviour can be learned, and by persevering repeti- 
tion made habitual. Thus polite, attentive, grace- 
ful, and gracious manners become involuntary, and 
part and parcel of our life. 

All the best part of education is learning how to 
behave. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and all the 
sciences, can be picked up at odd hours any where. 

Inconsiderate people ask — How can we know 
what is true, and right, and best, when there are such 
wide differences of opinion? But morals are as cer- 
tain as geometry. Right and wrong are as different 
as a circle and a square. No man sees white as 
black, or a crooked thing as straight. 

As a gardener every day clears away weeds, and 
cultivates plants and flowers, so a man should every 
day correct faults, and improve his mind and man- 
ners. The best work of every life is self-culture first, 
and then, and chiefly by that means, help in the 
culture of others. 

The one right way of getting into society is to 
qualify one's self to be its charm and ornament. 

No distinctions of rank can do away with the re- 



MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS. 221 

spect due from youth to age, or the reverence man 
owes to woman. 

The protection of a woman from the first encroach- 
ments of impudent familiarity is a prudent reserve of 
manner toward every man capable of such conduct. 
When it occurs it should be instantly checked by the 
indignant surprise it naturally excites. 

Fussiness, dressiness, display of riches, titles, 01 
distinctions of any kind, are "snobbish" vulgarities. 
The one corrective is modesty. All snobbery is 
assumption. Every kind of attempt at display has 
in it selfishness and vulgarity. The law of perfect 
manners is simplicity and forge tfulness of self. 

Simplicity of language is more truly elegant than 
any laboured floridness of speech. The best 
speakers and writers use the most familiar words. 
High flown expressions are as pretentious as inappro- 
priate displays of dress and ornament. 

Virtues may become vices by excess. Excess of 
order, neatness, cleanliness, prudence, may become 
annoying, ridiculous, and even insane. Fastidious- 
ness, scruples, prudery, timidity, are faults of cha- 
racter and manners. We must accommodate our- 
selves to the world as we find it, and make it better 
as we can. 

Gossip and scandal are the vices of little minds 
and bad hearts. The rule of law should be the rule 
of society — every one should be considered innocent 
until proved guilty. Chanty hopeth all things. 

Society is neutral ground where all quarrels cease. 



222 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



People leave swords and pistols at home — they should 
leave their tempers at home also. 

Adapt your manners to your company. When in 
Rome, do as the Romans do. This rule has its 
limits, but it is best to conform, as far as possible, to 
the manners ot the country or society we are in. If 
people do not wear gloves, take yours off.- If they 
all eat from one dish with their fingers, what can you 
do but follow their example ? 

We have two words which express what no gentle- 
man and no lady should be — " fast " and " slow." 
We are offended with the fast, and bored with the 
slow. The fast is excessive, pretentious, imprudent, 
or impudent. Fast people are bold or slangy in 
conversation, eccentric in dress and manners, extra- 
vagant, and on the verge of indecorum. Slow people 
are tiresome. 

Enter the tent of an Arab, and when you have 
eaten with him, you are safe in his protection— safe 
if you have been his bitterest foe. But in civilisa- 
tion, the man who asks you to drink or to dine, may 
be plotting to swindle you. 

Never press people unduly to eat, or drink, or stay* 
True politeness consists in putting people at their 
ease, and giving them all possible freedom ; but a 
fussy ceremoniousness is always impertinent. 

Never intrude on people at their meals. Never 
presume to take a seat near your most intimate 
friend at a public table, or in an eating house, with- 
out a decided invitation. Never sit so as to see 



MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS. 



223 



people who are eating, unless requested to do so. 
Carefully avoid intrusions at all times, and particu- 
larly at meal times. 

True politeness is cosmopolitan. It goes like sun- 
shine around the globe. Like the ocean, it encloses 
all continents. Like the atmosphere, it envelopes all 
humanity. There is nothing narrow or sectional in 
any great thought or love. All true and truly noble 
things are universal. 

Whatever your own private opinions or inclinations 
may be, a certain regard is always to be paid to the 
opinions of others. If music of a Sunday evening 
offends your neighbours within hearing, or even those 
who pass in the street, it had better be dispensed 
with. There can be no complete independence or 
individuality in this respect, unless you can isolate 
yourself from public observation. 

At church, a quiet, serious deportment; an absence 
of all irreverence, gaiety, whisperings; a courteous 
attention to the preacher and the service, are abso- 
lute requisites. You should not loll, nor yawn, nor 
sleep, nor do anything to annoy preacher or congre- 
gation. The church is no place for exhibitions of 
connubial affection, nor flirtations, courtships, or 
coquetries ; nor for ordinary reading or business. 

The way to make friendships lasting and happy, is 
never to violate the principles of courtesy or good 
breeding with those you call your friends. They are 
entitled to as good treatment, to say the least, as other 
people — yet they often get the worst. 



224 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



Good society is an entertainment, to which good 
behaviour is a ticket of admission. 

It is a crime to murder language ; it is cruel to 
torture the ears of our neighbours ; and the good 
opinion of those around us is worth taking a little 
pains for. 

Endeavour to acquire and use, as round, smooth, 
sweet, solid and pure a tone as is possible to you. 
Avoid the nasal twang or whine ; it is odious. Avoid 
the flat tone ; it is flat. Avoid the guttural, the 
husky, the rough, the sharp, the dry, the cold ; for 
all these terms characterise tones of the voice itself, 
and aside from its modulations. 

Articulate clearly, and with entire distinctness, 
then, every word you have to speak. A clear articu- 
lation makes up for lack of force. Even deaf people 
can understand better those who speak distinctly, 
than those who only speak loud. Clear articulation 
makes speech like a beautiful engraving, in which 
every line is distinct, while the careless and blunder- 
ing manner of many speakers is like a blurred and 
defaced copy, in which every outline is lost. 

A musician will practice ten hours a-day, for five 
or ten years, to thoroughly master his art and instru- 
ment. Is it not w r orth as much effort to become a 
good writer \ by which means a retired student and 
even a feeble woman may sometimes move the world 
of mind, and shape the destinies of nations ? 

In regard to conversation, it is a capital rule, 
though seldom followed, not to speak, unless you 



MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS. 



225 



have something to say. Do what demands the doing • 
is a great rule of life. Let supply be governed by 
demand. Speak what asks to be said ; write what 
wishes to be written. 

Every letter requiring an answer should be imme- 
diately attended to, particularly if on business. To not 
answer when written to, is the same kind of rude- 
ness as not to speak when spoken to. In either case 
there may be a good reason for silence. 

In a friendly correspondence, the first letter should 
be answered as soon as received; but the second 
should be delayed the same interval as that taken by 
the first writer, who in this way regulates the fre- 
quency of the correspondence. This is a good rule 
among equals ; but where a gentleman writes to a 
lady, he can hardly delay an immediate answer, unless 
at her own request. 

Where a letter is long, or important ; where there 
are matters to be attended to, or subjects requiring 
consideration — a brief note should be sent at once, 
acknowledging the receipt of the letter, and promising 
a fuller answer. 

In giving, we must give nobly, and often a very 
little makes all the difference. The man is a " per- 
fect gentleman " who gives half-a-crown when, if he 
gave two shillings, he would be thought and called a 
sneak. Give a little more than is expected, as the 
overplus tells more in the feelings and opinions of 
others than all the rest. Beware of a reputation for 
stinginess ; and if you have any tendency in this 



226 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



direction, make a principle of guarding against the 
manifestation of so odious and ungentlemanly a vice. 

It is our right to gather useful and beautiful things 
around us, if we can do so honestly — that is, without 
any violation of the rights of others. To be honestly 
rich, to be rich with a full recognition of the rights of 
others, is noble, and praiseworthy in all respects. 
Every one has the right to acquire, by just and equit- 
table means, land, a home of beauty, food, clothing, 
books, pictures, all that contribute to the necessaries, 
the real enjoyments, and true luxuries of life. 

To gather riches in grasping avarice and greed for 
gain, in grinding the face of the poor, in spoliation 
and plunder of any kind, whether on a large or small 
scale, and by whatever trick or chicane of finance, 
commerce, or legalised robbery, is contrary to justice, 
and so unworthy of a gentleman. 

No gentleman or lady can be niggard, stingy, sel- 
fish, and mean. Avarice is one of the most ungen- 
tlemanly vices, as it is opposed to the two noble 
virtues of justice and generosity. 

Habitually regard the rights of others. You cannot 
come into the presence of another but there arises 
this question ot rights. Guard your own from un- 
scrupulous and wanton violation , but be still more 
careful not to trespass upon those ot others. Court- 
eously grant a little more than justice requires. Turn 
out a little more than half way. Nothing is lost by 
courtesy. The sentiment of justice, though often 
perverted and lost sight of, still rules humanity. The 



MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS. 



227 



very organ grinder knows he can trust it, and that, 
if you listen to his music, you will give him your 
penny in return. 

When you borrow money, if but a sixpence, pay 
it with scrupulous punctuality. There is a delicacy 
in these matters that cannot be violated. Borrow as 
seldom as possible; lend cheerfully, courteously, 
when you can ; and refuse firmly where the loan is 
too much or the risk too great. Offer your purse 
as freely as you do any other civility, where it may 
be needed. Those best entitled to such assistance, 
are often the last to ask, or the most unwilling to 
accept it. 

Never treat a debtor rudely. The most despicable 
insolence is that of the purse. If a man cannot pay, 
you gain nothing by insult or harsh treatment; if un- 
willing to pay, he feels justified in his refusal by your 
bad manners. The creditor who abuses or insults a 
debtor, really loses his claim to the money, for the 
insult should be considered an offset. 

Avoid all indebtedness if possible; but if you 
must owe, let it be to few persons, and in large 
amounts, rather than small ones. Pay all little 
personal matters, and the needy, and owe those who 
can afford to wait, and whom you can compensate. 

It is often better to go to a pawnbroker or a man 
who makes a business of lending, than borrow money 
of an acquaintance; it is seldom, indeed, that one can 
properly borrow of an acquaintance, unless a loan is 
voluntarily offered. 



228 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



As a matter of principle, no form ought to be 
customary or obligatory, which may in some cases be 
disagreeable. In some countries kissing is the com- 
mon salutation of both sexes. According to the 
French code, a woman gives her hand to a gentle- 
man to kiss, her cheek to her friends, but scrupu- 
lously keeps her lips for her lover. To allow one 
she did not love to kiss her on her lips, would be an 
outrage on the delicacy of sentiment. 

A true gentleman will do anything proper for 
him to do. He can soil his hands or use his muscles 
when there is occasion. The truest gentleman is 
more likely to carry home a market-basket or a par- 
cel, or to wheel a barrow through the street, than 
many a conceited little snob of a shop-boy. 

Society has no measure of character. It demands, 
therefore, a certain style, dress, manner, and reputa- 
tion, as the best guarantees it can have. 

The clergyman who should reveal the confidences 
of a parishioner ; the physician or surgeon who should 
betray the secret of some malady or operation; the 
lawyer w 7 ho should gossip of the affairs of his client, 
would deserve universal execration; so does any 
person who betrays confidences or even accidental 
discoveries of a similar character. 

When a misfortune has occurred, or a crime has 
been committed, people seem to act as if it w r ere 
desirable, by the utmost publicity, to aggravate the 
evil; when the first impulse with every one should be 
to remedy, to conceal, if publicity be undesirable, 



MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS. 



229 



and to prevent future evils of a similar character. 
Where the pride of a family, the reputation of a 
woman for virtue, or a man for honesty, are threat- 
ened, those who raise a hue-and-cry are something 
worse. than the wolves who fall upon and devour a 
wounded companion. 

Never boast of any service you have rendered 
another: perhaps a good general rule, covering all 
particulars, would be never to boast at all. 

Never ridicule the country, religion, or love of 
any one. It is well to remember, that it was only 
the little incident of being born in one place rather 
than another, that has prevented you from being a 
Turk, or Chinaman, or whatever you may happen 
not to like. 

Husband and wife are like two persons in the 
cabin of the same ship: bound to make the voyage 
together. But in society they are to forget each 
other — they are one, the husband is to the wife 
another self — but she must forget herself. 

Those who are ready to believe evil of others 
judge them out of a consciousness of their own 
habitual desires; and this may be, and often is, a 
false judgment. 

The man who thinks another will commit any 
immorality, because he has the opportunity, judges 
himself with a terrible judgment, because he judges 
another out of his own heart. Humanity and re- 
ligion demand that we exercise the charity of attri- 
buting the best motives rather than the worst; and 



230 



HOW TO BEHAVE. 



a charitable judgment, while it is humane to others, 
is favourable to ourselves. Every good feeling, 
and every good action, meet with a sure and 
abundant reward, if only in the consciousness of 
right endeavour. 

" Fear God ; honour the king." We fear most to 
offend those whom we should most love : then " per- 
fect love casteth out fear." In the love of perfect 
charity we love God supremely, and all creatures 
in him and for his sake. We honour the king as 
the representative of justice and order; and honour 
all their ministers, down to the common soldier and 
police constable. 

True life is in order — law, authority, obedience. It 
is well to understand, so as to give a wise obedience 
to an orderly authority; but obedience, even to un- 
wise command, is the first element of order. 

We stumble, and learn to walk. Our blunders 
educate us. In the end, every man works out his 
own destiny 



FINIS. 



Other Works by the same Author, 



A SCAMPER ACROSS EUROPE. 64 pp., 6d. 

COUNT RUMFORD: How he Banished Beg- 
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HOW TO LIVE ON SIXPENCE A-DAY. 
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HOW TO COOK. 137 pp., is. 

LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 



HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY the Basis of Sanitary 
and Social Science. 496 pp., 7s. 6d. 

TRUBNER & CO. 



ESOTERIC ANTHROPOLOGY (Mysteries of 
Man). 346 pp., 5s. 

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